tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5975469405341642972024-03-12T17:59:29.208-07:00Technology Centersokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.comBlogger123125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-86071202215634289662012-12-06T15:37:00.000-08:002013-02-15T02:51:11.266-08:00Mobile Learning in ELT: Survey 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">In 2010, after buying my first iPad I decided to do some research into how teachers were using mobile devices in their classrooms and their teaching. At this stage ‘smart’ phones were already starting to make an impact and tablet devices were just coming onto the market. The research results from this first survey were published in the Guardian Online under the title ‘<b>English language teachers connect to mobile learning’</b> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/14/teachers-mobile-learning">http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/14/teachers-mobile-learning</a> and the complete results and report can be downloaded from: <a href="http://technogogy.org.uk/mobile_survey.pdf" target="_blank">http://technogogy.org.uk/mobile_survey.pdf </a><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3oubpQ67vEI/UMEq5qsYBWI/AAAAAAAAC7I/lzfhPugpyHU/s1600/iPhoto-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3oubpQ67vEI/UMEq5qsYBWI/AAAAAAAAC7I/lzfhPugpyHU/s400/iPhoto-1.png" height="100" width="400" /></a></div><br />I followed this research up in 2011 using the same survey questions in an attempt to see how things had advanced with the intervening period and the results from that survey were published in May 2011 on the DELTA Publishing blog under the title ‘<b>mLearing and ELT: Are We Mobile Ready?</b>’ <a href="http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/development/mlearing-and-elt-are-we-mobile-ready">http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/development/mlearing-and-elt-are-we-mobile-ready</a><br /><br />One of the main observations from this survey was that many teachers were in fact ready and willing to embrace mobile learning and mobile devices, but that publishers seemed to be more reluctantly lagging behind.<br /><br />Over the last 18 months since publishing the 2011 survey results, mobile learning seems to have made its way into the main stream of discourse surround the implementation of educational technology in our schools and universities, so I have decided once again, thanks to the support of the <a href="http://www.bellenglish.com/Courses/Teacher/" target="_blank">Bell Educational Services</a> Teacher Training department, to launch a more extensive survey building on the original one to try to discover the extent to which the ‘talk’ about mobile learning has had any genuine impact and realisation in our schools and classrooms over the past three to four years.<br /><br />Whether you use technology, mobile learning or avoid it please find time to answer these 20 questions and share your ideas, opinions and reflections and I will once again publish the results for all to share.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QZGG7LQ" target="_blank">Mobile Learning in ELT 2013 Survey</a></li></ul>Many thanks for your help and participation.<br /><br /><b>Related links:</b><br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/iphone-for-speaking-homework.html" target="_blank">iPhone for Speaking Homework</a> </li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/ipad-apps-for-english-language-teachers.html" target="_blank">iPad Apps for English Language Teachers</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/create-books-for-ipad.html" target="_blank">Create Books for the iPad</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/getting-learning-out-of-classroom-with.html" target="_blank">Getting Learning out of the Classroom with Augmented Reality</a> </li><li> <a href="http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/uncategorized/augmented-reality-and-web-3-0" target="_blank">Augmented Reality and Web 3.0</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/creating-texting-dialogues-for-students.html" target="_blank">Creating texting dialogues for students</a> </li></ul>Best<br /><br /><br />Nik Peachey<br /><br /></div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-16034343585036124922012-10-11T15:55:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.273-08:00Two Contrasting Views of Educational Technology<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I’d like to share a couple of videos with you that I have used recently in <a href="http://www.celt.edu.gr/ict_4_ELT.htm" target="_blank">the courses I teach</a>. I find these videos particularly interesting because they show such contrasting approaches to learning and in particular - for want of a better word - elearning.<br /><br />This first one is from the early 1950’s and is about something called a ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Teaching_machine" target="_blank">teaching machine</a>’ which was created by behavioural psychologist B F Skinner. <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jTH3ob1IRFo?rel=0" width="420"></iframe> <br />As you see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Teaching_machine" target="_blank">Skinner’s teaching machines</a>, though not exactly iPads do look remarkably like what we would recognise as computers. What’s also remarkable is the claims that he makes for them and the reasons why he believes they are effective are remarkably similar to those made by many producers of learning and especially language learning software today.<br /><br />However, despite the extremely logical reasoning that Skinner expounds I’m sure if you were invited to sit down and use one of these machines for a period of time it wouldn’t hold your interest for very long and like me you probably watch those hard working children with a sense of pity.<br /><br />Of course it’s easy to look at videos like this with the advantage of hindsight and with a shinny iPad sitting close by and wonder at how they could ever have believed these machines would be effective, but if we look closely at quite a lot of elearning being produced these days, it isn’t long before we realise how similar in many ways it is to the kind of learning materials used on Skinner’s teaching machines. Gapfills, Multiple Choice Questions, True false Questions, etc. but with some multimedia rolled in still seem to be the mainstay of much computer based instruction and even mobile apps, so I’m not surprised to find that many of the teachers who come onto the courses I teach want to know how to use and produce these kinds of materials and to be honest I can see that they do have their place, but I think we should be aiming to do so much more than that with the materials we produce.<br /><br />Here’s the contrasting video that I like to use.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XwM4ieFOotA?rel=0" width="420"></iframe> <br />This clearly shows a completely different approach to the use of technology and for me a much more powerful one. It shifts the role of the computer from being a storage place for predefined information and transforms it into a conduit by which knowledge is shared and constructed through the interaction between people. I think this aspect of computer based learning is the one that most critics of educational technology most often fail to see, unfortunately it’s also this aspect and role of the computer that is most often feared and blocked by educational institutions around the globe, and ironically enough, by governments wishing to suppress the rights of their citizens.<br /><br />These videos and the methods of education demonstrated within them also highlight some other important points.<br /><br />In the first video knowledge is clearly seen as residing in the materials of the institution. The students have no part in the creation of the content nor do they have the chance to question the validity and accuracy of the content and the role of the students is simply to learn and remember the content.<br /><br />They sit in rows obediently working hard with no communication between them and no discussion sharing or collaboration of what they learning.<br /><br />The second of the videos is almost the opposite of this. The classroom and even the school has become almost unnecessary. The student creates and negotiates knowledge through interaction with multiple sources of information and using multiple channels of communication. The student acts independently and works autonomously much of the time.<br /><br />In a time when critical thinking, creativity and the ability to evaluate and manage information have become so important, it’s clear to see which kind of student we should be creating within our schools and the way we design and apply out learning tasks and materials will be a key factor in this.<br /><br />It’s true that the student in the second video isn’t a language student, and developing linguistic ability is about more than finding and applying knowledge, it also has to do with skills and the practice and development of those skills, but what better way to do this than from the kinds of authentic network building and knowledge building tasks that can help our students become life long learners of far more than language?<br /><br />The final thing that strikes me about these two videos is how they reflect the kinds of societies that the system of education seeks to create. For me the first is a society of obedient unquestioning worker drones being spoon fed information that will enable them to fulfil their predefined roles. The second is a society in which individuals are encouraged to think, act and explore, to question and to create. I know which I would prefer to live in.<br /><br /><b>Related links</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/how-i-use-social-media-for-my.html" target="_blank">How I use social media for my professional development</a> </li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/online-teacher-development-works-best.html" target="_blank">Online Teacher Development Works Best - 15 Reasons Why</a> </li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/developing-your-digital-study-skills.html" target="_blank">Developing your digital study skills </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/temporary-bookmarking.html" target="_blank">Temporary Bookmarking</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/10-teacher-development-task-for-web-20.html" target="_blank">10 Teacher Development Task for Web 2.0 Tools</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/creating-personal-homepage.html" target="_blank">Creating a personal homepage </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html" target="_blank">Create your own social network 7 steps </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/tick-list-of-21st-century-digital.html" target="_blank">A Tick List of 21st Century Digital Skills for Teachers </a></li></ul><br />Best<br /><br />Nik Peachey<br /><br /></div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-15649847246355179832012-09-05T09:06:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.279-08:00Online Teacher Development Works Best - 15 Reasons Why <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I've started this article with quite a bold statement, but it's a conclusion that I have been coming too over the course of quite a few years now. I should really put this into context though, as most of the teacher training I do deals with pedagogical training for the use of technology and is most often delivered during intensive face to face sessions, usually with groups of teachers working in a computer lab. Though, having said that, I do still believe that many of the reasons I have listed below do also apply to other kinds of more 'mainstream' teacher development too, especially intensive courses. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NHecXZdFf6U/UEd1aOommkI/AAAAAAAAC10/UtwbbP-Een4/s1600/online-training.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NHecXZdFf6U/UEd1aOommkI/AAAAAAAAC10/UtwbbP-Een4/s1600/online-training.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div><br />So, here are my 15 reasons why I think developing your teaching online can be more effective.<br /><br /><b>Learn while you teach</b> - This gives you the opportunity to try things out with your own classes working in your own environment with your own students. Often when we take a face to face intensive course we leave our familiar teaching environment and come back with lots of new ideas only to find that in our everyday reality many of them don’t work or create unforeseen problems that we don’t know how to deal with. Studying while we teach can give us the time to try out new ideas in our own work place, discover the obstacles and try to adapt them to our own context.<br /><br /><b>Non competitive</b> - Face to face courses can often become quite competitive and tend to favour people who are more confident and extrovert and who like to shine. This can often lead to the quieter more reflective types being overshadowed and not having the opportunity to contribute what may well be valuable comment or ask the questions for which they need answers. The text based and asynchronous nature of online training makes it much easier for everyone to have their say and can lead to a much richer and more collaborative learning experience.<b> </b><br /><br /><b>Work at your own computer</b> - This sounds like a very strange advantage, but training with technology on your own computer can be a huge advantage. Contrary to popular belief, computers do tend to be unique. The way one computer is set up and how it responds and the kinds of problems you encounter can be very different from one computer to another. Nothing is ore frustrating than going on a course with a computer that is set up to make things easy for you and then returning to your own computer and finding that there are a whole different set of problems that you don’t know how to solve. Training to use technology with your students needs to include training to trouble shoot the problems that you may have with your computer and learning how to overcome these and set your own computer up to run effectively in your own working environment.<br /><br /><b>Experiential learning</b> - The best way to learn about technology and online learning is to experience it for yourself. Being part of an online course gives you first hand experience of being an online learner and helps you to understand some of the challenges and obstacles your students will face when they use technology to study online.<br /><br /><b>Develop digital literacies </b>- Even if you aren’t doing an online course which is technology specific, you should still be able to pick up a few new techniques and develop some of your digital literacies by studying online. Again, a good online course will have some element of digital literacy and study skills development built in. This should go some way towards helping you understand how your students are learning in the real world and the kinds of study skills they need to develop.<br /><b><br />Digital networking literacies</b> - This really falls within digital literacies, but it is worth highlighting as I feel that developing your digital networking skills has real significance for your continuing development. If you can learn how to build supportive relationships with the other trainees on your course so that you can retain these contacts as a network after you finish the course then you can put these networking skills to good use within the various open online communities and networks that exist within various social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Having an online learning network and knowing how best to work within that network can help to ensure that you can guide your own continuing development after the course you are training on has finished.<b></b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ryWJ9yg8E58/UEd4CeM23TI/AAAAAAAAC2I/IoVdBmWxPA0/s1600/DSC05588.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ryWJ9yg8E58/UEd4CeM23TI/AAAAAAAAC2I/IoVdBmWxPA0/s1600/DSC05588.JPG" height="131" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Build international contacts</b> - Online training often provides a much more international learning environment than the classroom and so this can help to broaden the learning experience as there is a much wider range of experience to share. Finding out about how things are done in different countries and very different contexts to your own can be very refreshing and enlightening and can really enhance the learning experience and the network building potential of the course.<br /><b><br />Differentiated learning</b> - As a trainer when you encounter a group of teachers face to face, it takes time and effort to see them as individuals with individual needs and interests. As an online trainer this experience is reversed, you are constantly dealing and communicating with each member of the group as an individual and this enables you to more rapidly assess their needs as individuals and adapt the learning to suit them.<br /><b><br />One to one time</b> - Following on from the previous point, almost all tutor - student time in online courses is one to one rather than whole group, so again it is easier to ensure that as a trainee you get the attention you need from your tutor.<br /><b><br />Personality types</b> - For shyer less confident students online leaning can work to their advantage because contributing in text can be much less threatening than doing it orally. You also have more time to consider your contributions to the group and can edit and re-edit them to be sure that you express yourself clearly.<br /><b><br />Longer period of study</b> - Learning something well really takes time. Online training can often take place over a much longer period of time than most face to face courses can. This keeps you supported and engaged in the learning process for a greater period and so allows more time for development.<br /><br /><b>Your learning journey</b> - Because the interactions within an online course are digital, they are recorded and captured so you have the opportunity to go back and retrace and review your entire learning journey. This greatly increases the chances of a deeper learning experience and greater retention of what you have learned. <br /><br /><b>Time for reflection</b> - Online training allows more time for reflection and good online learning structures in this reflection, so that you not only reflect on your learning process but have time to discuss and share your reflections and share in the reflections of other teachers<br /><b><br />Flexibility</b> - You can study at times that are convenient for you and for time periods that suit your learning concentration span. A lot of classroom training time often turns into dead time, because the length of lessons are dictated by administrative convenience rather than pedagogical advantage and trainers and trainees are often left pushing their way through materials long after their optimum concentration period has been exceeded. When you study online you can have a break whenever and however often you feel like. This gives you time to ponder what you have learned or move on to new materials at your own pace and use your time more efficiently.<br /><b><br />Lower cost</b> - The costs, not only of courses but also of travel, accommodation and time off work are often vastly reduced when you take an online course rather than a face to face course.<br /><br /><br />So those are my 15 reasons. Feel free to add any of your own in the comments section.<br /><br />From the end of September 2012 I will also be running my own teacher development courses - ICT for ELT, so if you want to put my theories to the test, you can enrol on one of my courses. You can find more information here: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/413291448706284/" target="_blank">Facebook ICT for ELT</a><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/6d6e7c5eb514be9e7e5977690/images/ict_4_ELTaaa6bed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/6d6e7c5eb514be9e7e5977690/images/ict_4_ELTaaa6bed.jpg" height="96" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b>Related links:</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/learning-technology/" target="_blank">Learning technology news portal</a></li><li><a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/tools-for-learners" target="_blank">Web Tools for Learners</a></li><li><a href="http://www.onestopenglish.com/community/our-people/author-of-the-month/author-of-the-month-nik-peachey/551829.article" target="_blank">Author of the Month</a></li></ul><br />Best<br /><br />Nik Peachey</div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-37683840945268294702012-06-27T07:56:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.284-08:00How I use social media for my professional development<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This has been a common theme to many of the presentations, workshops, webinars and seminars that I have been asked to do over the last few years, but however many times I try to present on this subject I never really feel that I get the message across as clearly and persuasively as I would like. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FQLvTB93V7o/T-sdt84V8tI/AAAAAAAAC1A/W2Jv8hVSzmg/s1600/DSC01294.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FQLvTB93V7o/T-sdt84V8tI/AAAAAAAAC1A/W2Jv8hVSzmg/s400/DSC01294.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />The issue of how we use social media for our own development as teachers and as digitally skilled individuals, is one that I believe is of vital importance though, not just because it can enable us to keep developing as teachers through the content, ideas, resources and above all people it gives us access to, but also because the way use digital media for our own development should guide and influence the way we use it with our students and build their digital literacies and communication skills.<br /><br />So here it is. This my own attempt to outline my digital media learning experience, or at least part of it.<br /><br />I’ll split this into 3 sections which I’ll call<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Information in </b>- This is how and where I find information</li><li><b>Information processing </b>- This is how I process, engage with and capture information</li><li><b>Information out</b> - This is how I share what I’ve learned or discovered</li></ul><h4 style="text-align: left;"> <b>Information in</b></h4><div style="text-align: left;">One of my favourite and most useful sources of information is Diigo. What I particularly like about Diigo is the groups. As you can see here I’m a member of quite a few groups.</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://groups.diigo.com/user/nikpeachey%20" target="_blank">My Diigo Groups</a> </li></ul>The thing that I really like about the groups is that each group is set to send me a daily digest of any links shared within that group, so looking through these email digests is usually one of the first things I do at the beginning of each working day. These groups have really provided a very rich source of professional development for me and most of the interesting articles I read originate from here.<br /><br />I also have a range of RSS readers for my different devices and these keep me up to date on the blogs and journals I follow. I’ve been using Netvibes for quite some for this, but on my mobile devices I also use <a href="http://flipboard.com/" target="_blank">Flipboard</a> for more general information and <a href="http://zite.com/" target="_blank">Zite</a> for more professional things. This video shows how Zite works.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/20777645?byline=0&portrait=0&=1" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />Both these are very easy to browse when I have a moment spare and have great integration with both Twitter and Facebook.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://www.netvibes.com/nikpeachey" target="_blank">My Netvibes Feeds</a></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;">Apart from those I also use <a href="http://www.tweetdeck.com/" target="_blank">Tweet Deck</a> to follow specific topics on Twitter. I have it set up so that I can monitor the most useful hashtag related streams when ever I have some down time.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jBLViHDX_GA/T-savTGQMAI/AAAAAAAAC0s/Ax32kxpq1UA/s1600/TweetDeck-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jBLViHDX_GA/T-savTGQMAI/AAAAAAAAC0s/Ax32kxpq1UA/s400/TweetDeck-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b>Information processing</b></div><div style="text-align: left;">It’s really easy to spend a lot of time sorting through information and links to articles, only to discover a few weeks later that you can neither remember or find anything you looked at, so i use a whole range of tools to make sure I capture and attempt to digest all this information.<br />I’ve had a Delicious account for years now and I configured it so that anything I posted to Twitter also automatically went into that account. However after a while i found that I wasn’t really going back there and when I din’t find it a very useful place to search through, though this has changed a bit since the introduction of Stacks (collections of bookmarks that have a more visual user interface)</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://www.delicious.com/NikPeachey" target="_blank">My Delicious Account </a></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;">For a while I used a great visual bookmarking tool called SimplyBox, but unfortunately that disappeared, so I was left to resort through all my link there and find better solutions (never a bed thing). My solution has been to spread things out a little.<br /><br />I’ve been collecting a lot of infographics recently and I find the <a href="http://pinterest.com/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a> is the ideal tool for these. It’s easy to collect and save them using the browser bookmarklet and they display well when I want to search through and find the ones I need. </div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://pinterest.com/nikpeachey/infographics/" target="_blank">My infographic Collection</a> </li></ul><div style="text-align: left;">I’ve also found that Pinterest is great for collecting YouTube videos and this has been a great way to access the videos when I need them.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dSddgurOZ5U/T-sawWMFUpI/AAAAAAAAC00/Kog1_XCvH1U/s1600/Video-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dSddgurOZ5U/T-sawWMFUpI/AAAAAAAAC00/Kog1_XCvH1U/s400/Video-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Though sadly, although Pinterest grabs YouTube videos well it struggles with other web based video embeds, so I might have to look for something better for that.</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://pinterest.com/nikpeachey/video/" target="_blank">My video collection</a></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;">For a long time I had all my links to useful web tools and resources stored in boxes on SimplyBox and it has taken a while for me to find a replacement for this. I have tried publishing my favourite tools for learners using a <a href="http://scoop.it/">Scoop.it</a> site.</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/tools-for-learners" target="_blank">My Tools for Learners</a> </li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"> Although this is a nice way to share the tools it isn’t so handy when I come back to find them again. The answer to my problem came a few weeks ago when I discovered <a href="http://meaki.com/nikpeachey" target="_blank">Meaki</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TQ12kiEFyxQ/T-sasf68ioI/AAAAAAAAC0c/xgGOYB17mlg/s1600/NikPeachey_s+Clipsets+%257C+Meaki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TQ12kiEFyxQ/T-sasf68ioI/AAAAAAAAC0c/xgGOYB17mlg/s400/NikPeachey_s+Clipsets+%257C+Meaki.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />This looks similar to Pinterest, but it grabs a visual of the entire web page instead of just one image from it and the way the stored links can be accessed is much more user friendly for me, so I’ve been busy shifting links from my old boxes into this new site. So here are some examples (more to come soon)</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://meaki.com/collections/2a91f92535a348efa3bb1355d154331e" target="_blank">Tools for exploiting video</a></li><li><a href="http://meaki.com/collections/739a0f47e1ad44f3adf25e6fbcb7cf0b" target="_blank">Tools for developing vocabulary</a></li><li><a href="http://meaki.com/collections/a9b6f903f7c44952825af2ce4f0b35d5" target="_blank">Tools for developing writing skills</a><a href="http://meaki.com/collections/5e28b6831873477488214091e717cbe3" target="_blank">Tools for developing reading skills</a></li><li><a href="http://meaki.com/collections/e469a78da47d4444b10c9667dc8bb26a" target="_blank">Tools for developing digital narrative</a></li><li><a href="http://meaki.com/collections/5965c900f6f14b51897a1bf5b7f65623" target="_blank">Tools for creating infographics</a></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;"><br />This process of curation (sifting and organising links to useful content) may seem a little time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. Once the initial sites are set up, you can just use any short bursts of 5 or 10 minutes either at the start or end of the day or between lesson or other tasks. Let’s face it many of us find time for facebook in those short moments so why not something more productive?<br /><br />Of course the most important part of processing all this information and making use of it is to put it into practice in my teaching, training and very importantly my writing. Trying to synergise all this information, make sense of it and formulate it into a rational strategy for moving my development forward is something I couldn’t do without blogging. The act of writing something down and organising it into a rational readable text on a blog to be published for others in your profession to see can really help you to focus on and confront your own ideas and beliefs and many postings that I have started to write have ended up in the rubbish purely because the act of putting those ideas into text convinced me that was where they belonged. <br /><br />So having been through this process or collection, analysis, curation and reformulation the final step is to start to share those ideas.<br /><br /><b>Information out</b><br /><br />Sharing is a really important part of the process. It’s important because if you create something of value that can help you develop it can probably help others develop too. It’s also important because you can get some feedback from other teachers, perhaps even a little encouragement and appreciation and start to grow your network.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h6uuhznp7YA/T-satrRXo_I/AAAAAAAAC0k/1hFkOXMsVD4/s1600/Technology+in+English+language+teaching.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-h6uuhznp7YA/T-satrRXo_I/AAAAAAAAC0k/1hFkOXMsVD4/s400/Technology+in+English+language+teaching.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />My main tools for sharing are firstly <a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/learning-technology/">Scoop.it</a>, as I mentioned earlier, which is where I store links to any interesting articles I find, and also a few that I write. <a href="http://scoop.it/">Scoop.it</a> is a particularly useful tool because it synchronises with other services such as</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ICT4ELT" target="_blank">My Facebook page</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/NikPeachey" target="_blank">My Twitter account</a> </li><li><a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/in/nikpeachey" target="_blank">My Linkedin Account</a> </li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">My Tumblr blog</a></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;">The <a href="http://www.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Tumblr</a> site, is something I’ve only started using quite recently, and only really to back up all those articles, so that if Scoop.it disappears or decides to start charging large amounts of money I haven’t completely lost everything.</div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/learning-technology/" target="_blank">My Learning Technology Scoop.it</a></li></ul><div style="text-align: left;">As I said <a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/learning-technology/" target="_blank">Scoop.it</a> posts straight through to Twitter, which I mentioned earlier is also a great source of information in. I tend not to engage with people very much through Twitter though. For me it’s a great way to share links to content and find links to content, but it’s not a great platform for communication, so I also have a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ICT4ELT" target="_blank">Facebook page</a> which I find much more suitable for that.</div><br /><br /><b>Conclusion</b><br />So that’s it. My social network for professional development. It does take time to build up something like this, but it can grow organically just by registering on a few sites and then putting in 5 or 10 mins whenever you have time. In the long run, that’s far more time economical than going to a conference and certainly much cheaper, and best of all the network you develop is one that is absolutely specific to your own needs, so what could be better.<br /><br />I’ll finish with a word of advice. This process can become quite addictive, especially for the social attention it can bring to you, as you start to accumulate hundreds or even thousands of followers, but don’t let feeding this network take over as the purpose of the process. Always try to retain your integrity and focus on quality. Have high standards - If you don’t find anything useful or interesting to share or write about, then have a day off, never share something unless you have genuinely learned something from it and feel it has value.<br /><br />I hope this is useful.<br /><br /><b>Related links:</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/developing-your-digital-study-skills.html" target="_blank">Developing your digital study skills </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/temporary-bookmarking.html" target="_blank">Temporary Bookmarking</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/10-teacher-development-task-for-web-20.html" target="_blank">10 Teacher Development Task for Web 2.0 Tools</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/creating-personal-homepage.html" target="_blank">Creating a personal homepage </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html" target="_blank">Create your own social network 7 steps </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/tick-list-of-21st-century-digital.html" target="_blank">A Tick List of 21st Century Digital Skills for Teachers </a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peachey<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-17834672050392841482012-06-07T09:59:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.367-08:00Developing Your Digital Study Skills<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Making the move from our safe and trusted traditional literacy habits to newer digital skills can be quite a challenge, but as teachers I think we are really unlikely to be able to use technology and help our students use technology really effectively unless we are prepared to face this challenge. Technology needs to be more than part of the way we teach but it also has to be part of the way we ourselves continue to learn and part of our everyday professional practice.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PdQYS8v8DCE/T9DbSU9Q8NI/AAAAAAAACy0/U6UWrbXO9nw/s1600/scrible+%257C+smarter+online+research+-+annotate%252C+organize+%2526+collaborate+on+web+pages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="88" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PdQYS8v8DCE/T9DbSU9Q8NI/AAAAAAAACy0/U6UWrbXO9nw/s400/scrible+%257C+smarter+online+research+-+annotate%252C+organize+%2526+collaborate+on+web+pages.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><a href="http://www.scrible.com/" target="_blank">Scrible</a> is one tool that has been helping me to make this step away from my paper and pencil study habits and towards a more efficient and digital way of learning.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.scribd.com/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.scrible.com/" target="_blank">Scrible</a> enables me to replace my highlighter, sticky notes and coloured pens and to work with similar tools directly on the computer screen.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-46YLz7jnNic/T9DbPvUbQYI/AAAAAAAACyg/_4zLeBJK-DA/s1600/60%2525+Of+Students+Won_t+Attend+A+School+Without+Free+WiFi-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-46YLz7jnNic/T9DbPvUbQYI/AAAAAAAACyg/_4zLeBJK-DA/s400/60%2525+Of+Students+Won_t+Attend+A+School+Without+Free+WiFi-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span id="goog_275182034"></span><span id="goog_275182035"></span><br />As an information addict, I spend quite a lot of my time scanning through blogs and journal articles about educational technology and language learning and trying to keep track of useful quotes and information from around the web. Recently I have started using <a href="http://www.scrible.com/" target="_blank">Scrible</a> to help me do this.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.scrible.com/" target="_blank">Scrible</a> is a simple browser plugin that I can activate whenever I find something interesting online. The plugin opens a toolbar which enables me to annotate and mark up webpages with different colour highlighters, sticky notes and change the colour of the text.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TrpWbre1ASM/T9DbRktLXPI/AAAAAAAACyw/hlK7fVKzs5s/s1600/Technology+can+sometimes+be+wasted+on+English+language+teaching+%257C+Education+%257C+Guardian+Weekly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TrpWbre1ASM/T9DbRktLXPI/AAAAAAAACyw/hlK7fVKzs5s/s400/Technology+can+sometimes+be+wasted+on+English+language+teaching+%257C+Education+%257C+Guardian+Weekly.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />But is can do more than this, because it also enables me to save the articles and webpages I have commented on, along with my my annotations into a library so that I can come back and find them later.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lT-EAOqi3jM/T9DbQy-62GI/AAAAAAAACyk/GRAsYAt6894/s1600/My+Library+-+scrible+-+simpler%252C+smarter+research.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lT-EAOqi3jM/T9DbQy-62GI/AAAAAAAACyk/GRAsYAt6894/s400/My+Library+-+scrible+-+simpler%252C+smarter+research.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Once I have saved the annotated pages I can also share them with others by creating a simple link. These links can be either as ‘read only’ (the students can see my annotations but not change them) or as ‘editable’ pages (students can see my annotations and also add their own) that I can work on collaboratively.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's a short video showing <a href="http://www.screencast.com/t/vKilqrLxm4pB" target="_blank">how Scrible works</a></li></ul>For me this is a great study aid and really ensures that I can go back, find and review all the articles I’ve studied.<br /><br /><b>How to use Scrible EFL / ESL students</b><br />We can get our students to use <a href="http://www.scrible.com/" target="_blank">Scrible</a> in the same way that we would to study an online text, though we can also use it to focus them on language development too. Here are some suggestions.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Get students to identify and change the colour of all collocations. They can use different colours for different types.</li><li>Use the sticky notes to set up reading tasks and comprehension questions and get students to highlight the part of the text where they find the answer.</li><li>Get students to read a text and post sticky note questions about it for you to answer.</li><li>Get students to colour code different parts of speech within the text.</li><li>get students to colour highlight different verb structures. They could also leave sticky notes saying what the structure is or what use of the structure is being demonstrated.</li><li>Get students to use sticky notes to define words from the text.</li></ul><b>What I’m not so sure about</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The toolbar can be a little bit fiddly sometimes and it’s difficult to attach sticky notes to specific areas of images.</li></ul>On the whole I really like <a href="http://www.scrible.com/" target="_blank">Scrible</a> and have found it really useful to help me move away from pen and paper in a way that makes much more sense as most of my studying is done online using digital resources.<br /><br />I hope you give it a try too.<br /><br /><b>Related links:</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/10-teacher-development-task-for-web-20.html" target="_blank">10 Teacher Development Task for Web 2.0 Tools</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/creating-personal-homepage.html" target="_blank">Creating a personal homepage </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html" target="_blank">Create your own social network 7 steps </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/tick-list-of-21st-century-digital.html" target="_blank">A Tick List of 21st Century Digital Skills for Teachers </a> </li></ul><br />Best<br /><br />Nik Peachey<br /><br /></div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-78919255412454515122012-05-22T07:38:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.372-08:00Instant Opinion Polls in the Classroom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">For a long time now I have been looking for a tool that enables instant polling in the classroom or in the lecture room. I specifically wanted something that:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> doesn't require registration (especially from the people I'm polling)</li><li>updates very quickly</li><li>works on any platform from computers to mobile devices</li></ul>It looks like I have finally found what I've been looking for and best of all it's free. The tool that I have found is <a href="http://mentimeter.com/" target="_blank">Mentimeter</a> and it does all of the above.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's an example of a poll I created where you can add your vote: <a href="http://vot.rs/d6dbde">http://vot.rs/d6dbde</a> </li><li>Here is a link to the results <a href="http://mentimeter.com/public/5dc1bf7d6eeb" target="_blank">http://mentimeter.com/public/5dc1bf7d6eeb</a> (if you are one of the first to read this article there may not be many results yet).</li></ul><br />Creating the poll was really quick and easy I just went to <a href="http://mentimeter.com/" target="_blank">http://mentimeter.com</a> and typed in my question, then I clicked on '<b>Create Question</b>',<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3DhIkm4yhG8/T7ui83wnr9I/AAAAAAAACwU/_y60fa3nh7U/s1600/Mentimeter+%257C+Interact+with+your+audience-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3DhIkm4yhG8/T7ui83wnr9I/AAAAAAAACwU/_y60fa3nh7U/s320/Mentimeter+%257C+Interact+with+your+audience-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />I then entered my selection of answer choices, chose a theme and clicked on '<b>Save and Start Presenting</b>'.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9Svc0HbR5Tk/T7ui9g8IVxI/AAAAAAAACwc/5Fml_82n-rI/s1600/Mentimeter-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9Svc0HbR5Tk/T7ui9g8IVxI/AAAAAAAACwc/5Fml_82n-rI/s320/Mentimeter-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />The poll is then ready to use. There are a number of ways of sharing it.<br /><br />You can get a URL with a code to restrict entry or to make it quick and easy to share in presentations (Here's one on the flipped classroom. The URL is always <a href="http://vot.rs/" target="_blank">http://vot.rs/</a> then you have a specific code for the poll, which in this case is 23512 ) anyone with this code can then vote. By all means give it a try.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X_sf4b0-qDE/T7ui_J84taI/AAAAAAAACwk/_dTgSjOTpOA/s1600/Presentation_+Do+you+feel+that+educational+technology+is+enhancing+language+learing+in+ELT%253F-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X_sf4b0-qDE/T7ui_J84taI/AAAAAAAACwk/_dTgSjOTpOA/s320/Presentation_+Do+you+feel+that+educational+technology+is+enhancing+language+learing+in+ELT%253F-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />You can click on share after you create your poll and get a direct web link which you can share through social media, such as <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/NikPeachey" target="_blank">Twitter</a> or <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=148739365144043" target="_blank">Facebook</a> etc.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q4rVMzU-7pI/T7ujAGwIOnI/AAAAAAAACwo/eetL8oKTWp8/s1600/Presentation_+Do+you+think+a+flipped+classroom+approach+can+be+useful+in+English+language+teaching%253F-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q4rVMzU-7pI/T7ujAGwIOnI/AAAAAAAACwo/eetL8oKTWp8/s320/Presentation_+Do+you+think+a+flipped+classroom+approach+can+be+useful+in+English+language+teaching%253F-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />By clicking on '<b>Share</b>' on your poll page you can also get an embed code or a link to to a public results page. I've embded the poll below to show you how it looks.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://mentimeter.com/public/ed6a46be0320" width="420"></iframe><br /><b>So what's so great about creating live polls?</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Well they are great if you are lecturing or presenting at a conference with a wireless network as you can get instant feedback and responses that everyone can share in and so involve more people.</li><li>You can use them in class as a quick test to see if students have understood your material.</li><li>You can get students to create them and test each other.</li><li>You can use them for opinion polls in class, both before and after discussions to see if there is any shift in opinion.</li><li>The responses are anonymous, so it's a good tool to use to get honest feedback if you are doing action research in class, especially if it is related to a sensitive issue, such as your own teaching style or methods.</li></ul><b>What's not to like?</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Well there isn't much I can say that I don't like about this tool.</li><li>I'd like to have polls with more than one question though.</li><li>You have to be careful about using polls like this on mobile phones if your students are having to pay a connection charge, so it really helps to be able to get them on the wireless network if you are using it in class.</li></ul>I hope you find <a href="http://mentimeter.com/" target="_blank">http://mentimeter.com</a> useful and enjoy using it with your students.<br /><br /><br /><b>Related links:</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/10-tools-for-increasing-engagement-in.html" target="_blank">10 Tools for Increasing Engagement in Online Courses </a> </li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/3-tools-for-exploiting-wifi-during.html" target="_blank">3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations </a> </li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/questioning-role-of-technology-in.html" target="_blank">Questioning the Role of Technology in Education </a> </li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/ipad-apps-for-english-language-teachers.html" target="_blank">iPad Apps for English Language Teachers </a> </li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/may/15/technology-fails-elt" target="_blank">Technology can sometimes be wasted on English language teaching</a></li></ul><br />Best<br /><br /><br />Nik Peachey</div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-28264234674604233342012-04-06T02:29:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.378-08:00Getting Learning out of the Classroom with Augmented Reality<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">For a while now I have been expounding the wonders of augmented reality (See: <a href="http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/uncategorized/augmented-reality-and-web-3-0" target="_blank">Augmented Reality and Web 3.0</a>) , so I thought it was time at last to give some examples of how we can actually get students using this technology and to show how it can superimpose the Internet onto their physical world.<br /><br />So here are some teaching suggestion which exploit two augmented reality type apps and gives students some reading, listening and speaking practice, as well as a bit of exercise.<br /><br />The apps you need for this activity are both free and the first is 'Woices'. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FfQVB9HvdF8/T36rjxgOaCI/AAAAAAAACmw/bRsjawWuMNw/s1600/woices.com+-+location+based+audioguides.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FfQVB9HvdF8/T36rjxgOaCI/AAAAAAAACmw/bRsjawWuMNw/s320/woices.com+-+location+based+audioguides.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a href="http://woices.com/" target="_blank">Woices</a> is a simple voice recording app that you can use on your mobile device to create and upload audio files to the Internet. You can also add an image to your audio recordings. The wonderful thing about Woices though is that by using GPS it understands where you were when you created the audio file and 'attaches' it to that location, so anyone who has the Woices app can go to the location and find the audio file by clicking on the 'Explore' icon on their app.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u0dQRgFNSKk/T3608umsFfI/AAAAAAAACo4/rM_d9zUR-Gg/s1600/IMG_1701.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u0dQRgFNSKk/T3608umsFfI/AAAAAAAACo4/rM_d9zUR-Gg/s320/IMG_1701.PNG" width="213" /></a></div><br />So it's a bit like leaving hidden audio notes around the world that only other Woices users can find.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--EKK_g7DXFA/T361MrZX9xI/AAAAAAAACpA/YVTnEO98XaI/s1600/IMG_1700.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--EKK_g7DXFA/T361MrZX9xI/AAAAAAAACpA/YVTnEO98XaI/s320/IMG_1700.PNG" width="213" /></a></div><br /><b>Here's how it works. </b><br />First register on the <a href="http://woices.com/" target="_blank">Woices website</a> and download the app for your mobile device.<br />When you open the app it looks like this. You simply click on 'Record' to start speaking.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gzR6XrfxVlY/T36s0B73QoI/AAAAAAAACnA/Q1AOwtaHAD4/s1600/IMG_16-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gzR6XrfxVlY/T36s0B73QoI/AAAAAAAACnA/Q1AOwtaHAD4/s320/IMG_16-1.png" width="212" /></a></div><br /> When you have finished speaking click on 'Stop'. Then you can listen and delete the recording (recordings are called 'echoes'), or if you are happy with it, you can click on the small blue arrow on the right and add a title and description as well as a photo to your echo.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FmSJVAM9864/T36uL8mJWJI/AAAAAAAACnQ/Y-zqiOQJqBE/s1600/IMG_1713.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FmSJVAM9864/T36uL8mJWJI/AAAAAAAACnQ/Y-zqiOQJqBE/s320/IMG_1713.PNG" width="213" /></a></div><br />Then you click on 'Send' to publish it to the internet and this will use your phones GPS to attach it to the location where you created the echo.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-crQuTuv9Y1s/T36tu-cMpVI/AAAAAAAACnI/lJzTCyDhK4A/s1600/IMG_17.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-crQuTuv9Y1s/T36tu-cMpVI/AAAAAAAACnI/lJzTCyDhK4A/s320/IMG_17.png" width="212" /></a></div><br />To find 'echoes' which are relevant to your location, just click on the 'Explore' icon and you will get a list of 'echoes' which have been left close to your location.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SySEY2wfKvc/T36uuISfh_I/AAAAAAAACnY/sglkxZISlJ8/s1600/IMG_169.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SySEY2wfKvc/T36uuISfh_I/AAAAAAAACnY/sglkxZISlJ8/s320/IMG_169.png" width="215" /></a></div><br />The second app is called Layar and Layar enables developers to create web based multimedia information (called 'layers')which can only be accessed whenever you are close to specific locations.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nZKA6VrTKtg/T36vcgr4eBI/AAAAAAAACno/-lpluRhGdGc/s1600/Layar.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nZKA6VrTKtg/T36vcgr4eBI/AAAAAAAACno/-lpluRhGdGc/s320/Layar.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Layar comes with a number of packs of layers and the one that I want to use is the Wikipedia one. This layer enables users to find entries in Wikipedia which relate specifically to places in their environment.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rxehF1q6rbY/T36v6kdGV5I/AAAAAAAACnw/8STJqpyfFSk/s1600/IMG_1705.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rxehF1q6rbY/T36v6kdGV5I/AAAAAAAACnw/8STJqpyfFSk/s320/IMG_1705.PNG" width="213" /></a></div><br />So wherever the user is standing when they activate the app they will get information which relates specifically to that place.<br /><br /><b>Here's how it works.</b><br />You need to download the <a href="http://www.layar.com/browser/info/" target="_blank">Layar app</a> for your mobile device. Make sure that when you open the app for the first time, you enable the location tracking feature so that Layar knows where you are. Then go to the layers.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FJ1mCKvIPVk/T36wobHcZ2I/AAAAAAAACn4/qx1pxFhw_a4/s1600/IMG_1696e.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FJ1mCKvIPVk/T36wobHcZ2I/AAAAAAAACn4/qx1pxFhw_a4/s320/IMG_1696e.png" width="216" /></a></div><br />You'll find the Wikipedia layer in the Education section. Click on it and then click on 'Launch'.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2jApSSGRc4I/T36xUUsGjjI/AAAAAAAACoA/bnJRNdUcdDA/s1600/IMG_1716a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2jApSSGRc4I/T36xUUsGjjI/AAAAAAAACoA/bnJRNdUcdDA/s320/IMG_1716a.png" width="213" /></a></div><br />When you hold up your phone and move it around slowly you should start to see the Wikipedia summaries appearing at the bottom of the screen.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iWDhG5e-llc/T36yEKfH5sI/AAAAAAAACoI/eOq_wCJff0s/s1600/IMG_1706g-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iWDhG5e-llc/T36yEKfH5sI/AAAAAAAACoI/eOq_wCJff0s/s320/IMG_1706g-1.png" width="214" /></a></div><br />At the top of the screen you'll also see a kind of 'radar' screen which shows you where the interesting places are in relation to where you are standing.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7lR5xihEc8w/T36ybDPrmXI/AAAAAAAACoQ/aSZTJYZQOnw/s1600/IMG_1706f.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7lR5xihEc8w/T36ybDPrmXI/AAAAAAAACoQ/aSZTJYZQOnw/s320/IMG_1706f.png" width="214" /></a></div><br /><br />If you click on the small Wikipedia summary you will get two more icons.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0J1DdEqm2uc/T36zMHtXUbI/AAAAAAAACoY/PXopkQPZ4TE/s1600/IMG_1707w.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0J1DdEqm2uc/T36zMHtXUbI/AAAAAAAACoY/PXopkQPZ4TE/s320/IMG_1707w.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />One of these takes you to the entry on Wikipedia for that location.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oaOti8cBn1k/T36zcn_ijMI/AAAAAAAACog/oZGFLOu2Gwc/s1600/IMG_1708.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oaOti8cBn1k/T36zcn_ijMI/AAAAAAAACog/oZGFLOu2Gwc/s320/IMG_1708.PNG" width="213" /></a></div><br />The other takes you to a map, which will show you how to get to the place from where you standing.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cQx1OKB3aq8/T36zjAfWcVI/AAAAAAAACoo/x1BZEn6Rvag/s1600/IMG_1709.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cQx1OKB3aq8/T36zjAfWcVI/AAAAAAAACoo/x1BZEn6Rvag/s320/IMG_1709.PNG" width="213" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>So here is how we can use this to create motivating out of school activities</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Ask your students to find 5 interesting places around their town using the Wikipedia layer. They should go to each place research it on Wikipedia using the Layar app and then record a short audio entry using Woices and add a picture to it. (You can check their entries through the Woices web based interface)</li><li>You could make a kind of treasure hunt and got to the places yourself and use Woices to leave audio clues about the next place to visit, so that students have to listen to your clue when they get to the location (by pressing the 'Explore' icon on the Woices app) and research the places around them on Wikipedia to find out where to go next to find the next clue. You could get them to leave an audio entry and image at each place along the trail to prove they have been there.</li><li>You could use Woices to leave audio notes at a set of locations and have factual errors in the notes. Then your students would have to visit the places, press 'Explore' and find the factual errors by comparing your audio with the Wikipedia entry for that place.</li><li>Get students to create their own audio tours or treasure hunts for each other using Woices and the Wikipedia layer.</li></ul><b><br />What I like about augmented reality</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I think it's great that we can get students learning about their environment outside of the classroom.</li><li>Taking learning out of the classroom like this gives students tools which they can use in their everyday life.</li></ul><br /><b>Things to be aware of</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Be careful of your students e-safety and make sure they don't leave any information about their home address or where they live.</li><li>Make students aware of their digital 'footprint' so that they use social media responsibly.</li></ul>I hope this shows at least a little of the potential of augmented reality apps on mobile devices. I think there is huge potential in these kinds of apps to develop location based experiential learning that can get our students out and about exploring their environment and interacting with the world around them through the internet. I hope you give it a try.<br /><br />Lastly, I'd like to welcome <a href="http://www.worthavegroup.com/education" target="_blank">Worth Ave Group</a> as a new advertiser. <br /> <b><br /></b><br /><b>Related links:</b><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://www.deltapublishing.co.uk/uncategorized/augmented-reality-and-web-3-0" target="_blank">Augmented Reality and Web 3.0</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/creating-texting-dialogues-for-students.html" target="_blank">Creating texting dialogues for students</a> </li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/audioboo-to-posterous-audio-podcasting.html" target="_blank">Audioboo to Posterous</a> </li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/3-tools-for-exploiting-wifi-during.html" target="_blank">3 Tools for exploring wifi during presentations</a> </li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/questioning-role-of-technology-in.html" target="_blank">Questioning the role of technology in education</a> </li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/ipad-apps-for-english-language-teachers.html" target="_blank">iPad apps for English language teachers</a> </li></ul>Best<br />Nik Peachey</div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-55242972683133396182011-11-08T10:27:00.000-08:002013-02-15T02:51:11.386-08:0010 Tools for Increasing Engagement in Online Courses<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Over the last few years I've done a lot of work developing writing and redeveloping online courses and course materials. In the initial rush to get learning online many organisations got themselves a Moodle platform and then attached a whole load of PDFs and .docs, added some forums and the odd video clip and called it an online course. It's no surprise then that drop out rates for online learning courses have been so high.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q_bDOrmXk3k/Trly7K2ntsI/AAAAAAAACdw/QrVOfAi3q7w/s1600/Moodle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q_bDOrmXk3k/Trly7K2ntsI/AAAAAAAACdw/QrVOfAi3q7w/s1600/Moodle.jpg" /></a></div><br />The advent of Web 2.0 though, brought a whole bunch of new tools that course designers could take advantage of to make content more social, interactive and engaging.<br /><br />Here are some of the tools I've been using recently to embed a bit more interactivity into the courses I work on.<br /><div><br /><br /><b>Storify</b> - <a href="http://storify.com/" target="_blank">http://storify.com</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sFJIIeNpsQc/Trly8GLy6FI/AAAAAAAACeE/Q-KvSGLa7Cc/s1600/Storify.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sFJIIeNpsQc/Trly8GLy6FI/AAAAAAAACeE/Q-KvSGLa7Cc/s320/Storify.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Storify is a great tool for collecting together a mixture of web based resources and references into a web based widget that you can then structure into a digital research paper. You can easily pull in comments from Facebook, Twitter or Google searches as well as a range of other social media sources. You then add blocks with your own commentary and reflections. The whole thing can then be embedded into a webpage. This is a great tool for developing digital literacy and referencing online sources.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's an example of a Storify text designed to share <a href="http://storify.com/nikpeachey/wordle-resources" target="_blank">information about Wordle</a>.</li></ul><br /><b>Tricider</b> - <a href="http://tricider.com/" target="_blank">http://tricider.com</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SMV7mEyBiqs/Trly9If1sbI/AAAAAAAACeI/lhGRS0wRUtk/s1600/tricider-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SMV7mEyBiqs/Trly9If1sbI/AAAAAAAACeI/lhGRS0wRUtk/s320/tricider-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Tricider is a great tool for crowd sourcing opinion. You start with a single question problem and then you or your students can add possible solutions to the problem. Students can also add some pros and cons to the solutions and vote on the ones they prefer. These can be embedded into webpages and can give far more structure to online discussion than things like threaded forums which often become garbled and confusing.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's an example discussing the <a href="http://tricider.com/en/brainstorming/AQOa" target="_blank">pros and cons of Moodle</a> (Feel free to participate)</li></ul><b>Urtak</b> - <a href="https://urtak.com/" target="_blank">https://urtak.com</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-igKvkwn1xZo/Trly9v6b5NI/AAAAAAAACeQ/1vdkGB530E4/s1600/Urtak-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-igKvkwn1xZo/Trly9v6b5NI/AAAAAAAACeQ/1vdkGB530E4/s320/Urtak-10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />You can use Urtak to create simple social questionnaires for your courses. Although the responses are quite limited (Yes / No / Don't care) This can still be a useful tool for quick straw polls before developing deeper discussion through a forum. It also give students the chance to compare their opinions anonymously with those of classmates and also add their own questions to the questionnaire. The questionnaires can also be embedded into web pages and materials.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's an example of a questionnaire about <a href="https://urtak.com/u/4587" target="_blank">Education Today</a></li></ul><b><br />Intervue.me</b> - <a href="http://intervue.me/" target="_blank">http://intervue.me</a><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0WxCYSK30wQ/Trly5uJxSxI/AAAAAAAACdg/QRQg-V5F7Jc/s1600/intervueme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0WxCYSK30wQ/Trly5uJxSxI/AAAAAAAACdg/QRQg-V5F7Jc/s320/intervueme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />This is also a tool for creating questionnaires, but in the case of Intervue.me the questions can be open ended and the respondent leaves their answer verbally using a web cam. Intervue.me can't be embedded into pages , but you can link to your questionnaires and you can download the video clips of the answers as mp4 so you can then use these in materials you develop and as the basis for further discussion.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here is an example of a questionnaire <a href="http://intervue.me/i/233" target="_blank">asking teachers about their use of technology</a></li></ul><br /><b>VYou</b> - <a href="http://vyou.com/">http://vyou.com/</a><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7ykVUcYhNAE/Trly-Z-68sI/AAAAAAAACeY/V5x-Riju5IQ/s1600/vyou-6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="144" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7ykVUcYhNAE/Trly-Z-68sI/AAAAAAAACeY/V5x-Riju5IQ/s320/vyou-6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />You can use Vyou embed a video booth that students can go at any time of day to ask you questions. The video booth gives the impression that you are always available and builds some presence on your course. The messages students send you are delivered to an inbox and you are notified so that you can answer them. Vyou also has a very handy mobile app so you can answer the questions where ever you are on your iPhone or other mobile device.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's an example of <a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/p/ask-me-question.html" target="_blank">my own Vyou Q & A page on this blog</a></li></ul><br /><b>Keek</b> - <a href="http://www.keek.com/" target="_blank">http://www.keek.com/</a><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MiZ9GhMXnjw/Trly6YhO2rI/AAAAAAAACds/jn_8UvHztBQ/s1600/Keek+-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MiZ9GhMXnjw/Trly6YhO2rI/AAAAAAAACds/jn_8UvHztBQ/s320/Keek+-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />It's a good idea to get students to keep a learning journal on any course they do. It can feel a bit dull though writing journal entries to yourself, so why not get student to create a video based learning journal using Keek. They can add entries each day just using a web cam and microphone and you can leave video comments on their entries. Students on your course can also be encouraged to 'follow' each other. Individual entries can also be embedded into web pages which can enable you to build pages that share insights from your course participants. Keek also has a free mobile app that allows you to up date from mobile devices such as iPhone.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here you can see some <a href="http://www.keek.com/top100" target="_blank">examples from Keek users</a></li></ul><br /><b>Bundlr </b>- <a href="http://gobundlr.com/" target="_blank">http://gobundlr.com/</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--hd9I0Baz6E/Trly4rKrlcI/AAAAAAAACdU/X5ezAZRs5nc/s1600/Bundlr+-+Tools+for+Digital+Narrative.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--hd9I0Baz6E/Trly4rKrlcI/AAAAAAAACdU/X5ezAZRs5nc/s320/Bundlr+-+Tools+for+Digital+Narrative.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />This is a really useful tool for sharing theme based collections of bookmarks. It creates a very visual record of the book marked links which you can then embed into your course pages as widgets. This can be a really useful tool for setting research tasks based around a group of online resources.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here you can see a bundle of links relating to <a href="http://gobundlr.com/b/tools-for-digital-narrative" target="_blank">digital storytelling</a></li></ul><br /><b>Zooshia</b> - <a href="http://zooshia.com/" target="_blank">http://zooshia.com/</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_82AvHPUQyA/Trly_Da7JdI/AAAAAAAACek/jtPdkYWQU1g/s1600/Zooshia+-+Create+a+ZOOSH+%2521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_82AvHPUQyA/Trly_Da7JdI/AAAAAAAACek/jtPdkYWQU1g/s320/Zooshia+-+Create+a+ZOOSH+%2521.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Zooshia is a handy tool for creating widgets from social network sources that can be embedded into web pages. The widgets show a dynamic stream from whatever source we select. This can make suggestions for twitter or facebook people to follow much more informative and can also allow you to embed dynamic widgets from YouTube channels which will make your content much more dynamic too.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here is a widget I embedded into my blog showing the <a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/p/on-facebook.html" target="_blank">postings to my Facebook page</a></li></ul><br /><b>Present.Me </b>- <a href="http://present.me/" target="_blank">http://present.me/</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--tEvuXqqoBY/Trly7tVgLEI/AAAAAAAACd4/20Vmdiiwugs/s1600/Record+%2526+Share+your+PowerPoint+presentations+%257C+Present.me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--tEvuXqqoBY/Trly7tVgLEI/AAAAAAAACd4/20Vmdiiwugs/s320/Record+%2526+Share+your+PowerPoint+presentations+%257C+Present.me.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Present.Me can help you create online presentations from your PowerPoint slides. You can then add your talking head commentary to your slides and embed the whole thing into your online course. This works well as a lecture replacement and having a presenter that you can actually see along side your slides can help add to the engagement with your learners. You can embed this into your page and build a forum around it for follow up discussion.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here you can see a useful series of presentations showing you <a href="http://present.me/explore/academy" target="_blank">how to create a good presentation</a></li></ul><br /><b>Goanimate</b> - <a href="http://goanimate.com/" target="_blank">http://goanimate.com</a><br /> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-99r0FiiWcWE/Trly5L6VyAI/AAAAAAAACdY/EAnbv0ikkhI/s1600/GoAnimate+-+GoAnimate+Themes-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-99r0FiiWcWE/Trly5L6VyAI/AAAAAAAACdY/EAnbv0ikkhI/s320/GoAnimate+-+GoAnimate+Themes-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Online course content can become very dry and serious, so why not spice it up by creating a few animations using something like GoAnimate. It's a an easy tool for creating short animated dialogues that can be exported as video clips and embedded into your course. You can use these to introduce topics or raise issues for further debate.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here you can see a selection of <a href="http://goanimate.com/channels" target="_blank">channels that have been developed using animation</a></li></ul><br /><br />I hope these ten tools and the links from them have given you a few ideas into how you can spice up your online courses and make them more engaging and enjoyable and help you to retain students. Please leave a comment if you have suggestions for other free tools you have found useful for developing online content.<br /><br /><b>Related links:</b><br /><ul><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2011/09/10-tech-tools-for-teacher-training.html" target="_blank">10 Tech Tools for Teacher Training Courses</a> </li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/05/3-tools-for-exploiting-wifi-during.html">3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2011/06/crowdsourcing-knowledge-with-students.html">Crowdsourcing Knowledge with Students</a> </li><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/49973068/Task-10-Create-a-Video-Q-A-Booth" target="_blank">Create a Video Q&A Booth</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/11/so-ask-me-questions.html" target="_blank">So Ask Me a Question </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2011/04/create-video-questionnaires.html" target="_blank">Create Video Questionnaires</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/04/creating-social-polls-and.html" target="_blank">Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/pros-and-cons-as-web-based-research.html" target="_blank">Pros and Cons as Web Based Research Tasks </a></li></ul><br /><br /><br />Best<br /><br /><br />Nik Peachey</div></div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-5856570718208169612011-09-13T06:01:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.469-08:0010 Tech Tools for Teacher Training Courses<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Over the summer I was running a number of two week ICT in language teaching courses for teachers from around the world. The courses were part of the <a href="http://www.bell-centres.com/teacher-training/development/campus/site.asp">Bell summer campus</a> at Homerton College Cambridge. This was the first time in a while I had been asked to teach such long courses and i thought it was a great opportunity to see if I could fundamentally change the way the teachers related to technology, not just in the classroom as a tool for teaching learners, but as a tool within their everyday working practice.<br /><br />As sub goals I set out to run the course with absolutely no paper. That meant no photocopied handouts and no paper based note taking from trainees. I wanted to push these teachers to the point where they could work totally in the digital medium and where paper became totally unnecessary.<br /><br />I also wanted to use a form of loop input (using the technology to teach the technology) so that teachers were learning about the technologies they could use with students by actually using them for themselves.<br /><br />I would like to add that this course took place in a computer room with 1 Internet connected computer per teacher. <br /><br />What follows below is a brief outline of the tools I used to achieve this and how I used each tool.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R8e8tz3pOgU/Tm9Ro6IPWhI/AAAAAAAACYY/vH1jhr3CA6k/s1600/TodaysMeet-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="157" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R8e8tz3pOgU/Tm9Ro6IPWhI/AAAAAAAACYY/vH1jhr3CA6k/s320/TodaysMeet-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">TodaysMeet</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><a href="http://todaysmeet.com/">TodaysMeet</a><br />This was my fundamental communication tool. It allows me to create an instant chatroom which I can use as a backchannel so that students can communicate with each other by text and contribute to the session or just socialise while I'm talking. More importantly though, it enables me to share links to websites and digital document without having to get students to copy complex URLs into their web browser address bar. I simply paste the URL into the chat and when they get the message they click on the link and the URL opens in a new tab in their web browser. I can also use it as a kind of audience response system to get opinions from the whole class and to allow them to type in questions that I can address later.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's a quick video showing how it works: <a href="http://screencast.com/t/PkmiXrfhkv">TodaysMeet </a></li></ul><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CPO6RNzfvnI/Tm9R1Aazl7I/AAAAAAAACYc/2RluXzhvJeA/s1600/Penzu+%257C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CPO6RNzfvnI/Tm9R1Aazl7I/AAAAAAAACYc/2RluXzhvJeA/s320/Penzu+%257C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Penzu</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><a href="https://penzu.com/">Penzu</a><br />Penzu is a very simple web based private journal tool that I've been using for some time now. In this course I asked teachers to use it instead of taking paper based notes. Penzu is really quite minimalist and it looks just like a sheet of paper, but it stores and date stamps each journal entry and this makes it quite easy to find notes again from any computer as it is 'cloud based'. So this became one of the two standard tabs I asked the teachers to constantly keep open on their web browser. That way they could easily switch between note taking and investigating links and socialising with the class.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's a quick video showing how it works: <a href="http://screencast.com/t/4BeKVi5ds2r">Penzu</a></li></ul><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bkWSUqilTbY/Tm9R8a4QysI/AAAAAAAACYg/uqYLSrFoydk/s1600/280+Slides+-+Create+%2526+Share+Presentations+Online-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bkWSUqilTbY/Tm9R8a4QysI/AAAAAAAACYg/uqYLSrFoydk/s320/280+Slides+-+Create+%2526+Share+Presentations+Online-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">280Slides</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><a href="http://280slides.com/">280Slides</a><br />In place of PowerPoint and Keynote I used 280Slides to prepare and deliver the presentations I included in the course. 280Slides is really simple to use, stores the presentations online and creates a link and embed code so when I'm finished presenting I can instantly share the link with my group either by embedding it into a site or passing the URL through TodaysMeet.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's a quick video showing how it works: <a href="http://screencast.com/t/8hLNgKkCNM8">280Slides</a> </li></ul><br /><a href="http://www.delicious.com/">Delicious</a><br />During the course I shared a lot of links to background reading materials, useful follow up websites and blogs etc. The links were passed through TodaysMeet, but to make sure these links weren't lost I got the teachers on the course to create their own Delicious accounts to tag and store all the links so they could find them later on any computer. I also taught them how to add the bookmarking plug in to their browser tool bar. This really helped as it meant they could simply click on it and tag and save everything with just a couple of clicks.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's a link to: <a href="http://www.delicious.com/NikPeachey">My Delicious Bookmarks </a></li></ul><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WZVLSuGVygA/Tm9SEZfMxsI/AAAAAAAACYk/2AyaPa9zW2s/s1600/SimplyBox+-+Think+Inside+the+Box-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WZVLSuGVygA/Tm9SEZfMxsI/AAAAAAAACYk/2AyaPa9zW2s/s320/SimplyBox+-+Think+Inside+the+Box-12.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SimplyBox</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><a href="http://simplybox.com/">SimplyBox</a><br />Using Delicious for bookmarking articles etc was great, but for the Web 2.0 type learning tools I was introducing I wanted something more visual as a reminder, so I used SimplyBox. This is a simple to use tool which uses boxes in place of folders and enables you to grab an image from the site as a link back to it, rather than a title. The other great advantage of this tool is that you can share boxes and work on them collaboratively and anyone accessing the box can leave notes on each of the tools. I introduced this tool about halfway through the course by putting links to all the tools we had used in one box, and using this as a revision task, I got the teachers to leave teaching suggestions and notes about how to use each tool and what its strengths were on each of the bookmarks.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's a quick video showing how it works: <a href="http://screencast.com/t/m6xhu03lIFtu">SimplyBox</a></li><li>Here's an example box with my collection of: <a href="http://simplybox.com/public/?id=20851">Vocabulary Tools</a></li></ul><br /><a href="https://posterous.com/">Posterous</a><br />I used Posterous as my basic publishing tool for the teachers to build blended learning materials on, you can get started just by sending an email with your blog content in the body of the email and any images, videos or audio as attachments. Very few of them had done any blogging previous to the course so this was a really simple tool to get started on and it handles all kinds of media such as video, documents and embedded objects really well. So as they were building examples of online learning they were also creating their own e-portfolio.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's a quick video showing how it works: <a href="http://screencast.com/t/YqxupkEspobK">Posterous</a></li></ul><br /><a href="http://www.techsmith.com/jing/">Jing</a><br />Jing was another of the core tools for the course. Initially I got teachers to use it to grab and annotate images of websites so that they could create detailed step by step notes of how to use various web tools. They then dragged the images into documents and uploaded these to their Posterous blog which formatted them into web based documents using Scribd. As the course progressed I moved the teachers on from making text and image based instructions to using Jing to make and upload video based screencasts of the websites. They could then bookmark these with delicious and later use them to show their students how the websites worked, or they could add the link to their Posterous blog which would automatically embed the video into the blog page.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's an example of a document uploaded to Posterous: <a href="http://nikpeachey.posterous.com/how-to-create-a-back-channel">Example </a></li><li>You can download Jing free from <a href="http://www.techsmith.com/jing/">here </a></li></ul><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_cSaOAepVLg/Tm9SpU7dQhI/AAAAAAAACYo/lwfWQJ5eE-E/s1600/Wiggio+-+Makes+it+easy+to+work+in+groups.-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="174" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_cSaOAepVLg/Tm9SpU7dQhI/AAAAAAAACYo/lwfWQJ5eE-E/s320/Wiggio+-+Makes+it+easy+to+work+in+groups.-1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wiggio</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="http://wiggio.com/">Wiggio</a><br />Towards the end of the course I introduced the Wiggio VLE to the teachers. Wiggio is a very versatile and quick to create online environment which has a rich variety of communication tools. Using this platform has enabled me to form working groups from the courses so that they can stay in touch with each other and me after the course and continue to share links, videos, documents and more importantly ideas. This is a great tool for building dynamic courses and adds much more social interaction than something like Moodle.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Here's a quick video showing how it works: <a href="http://screencast.com/t/d4MCLZbT">Wiggio</a> </li></ul><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_601798959"><br /></a><br /><a href="http://tricider.com/">Tricider</a><br />I used Tricider as my needs analysis tool at the beginning and my action research tool during the course. It's a very simple to use, but very versatile polling tool. You just create a question and add some options then share it with the people you want answers from. The great thing is that they can add extra options and add various pros and cons of each option as well as voting on the ones they like. This makes the whole process of polling much more open, social and interactive.<br />Here's a quick video showing how it works: <a href="http://screencast.com/t/DyHknk7G">Tricider</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Firefox</a><br />Last but not least is the Firefox browser. I use this as a replacement for Internet Explorer. I find Firefox to be fast reliable and consistent and especially when working with Web 2.0 type tools it gives me very few problems. I can say none of this about IE which I often end up cursing whenever I have to use it in a training environment.<br />You can download Firefox from <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">here</a> <br /><br />So, using this combination of tools I managed to deliver the complete course without using paper note books or photocopying any materials, and I feel at the end of it my trainees were the better for it as they had spent a week challenging their ingrained study habits and taking a step towards working in the kind of digital world<br />their students will probably be negotiating in their future. Most of all though they had a chance to actually use the tools in much the same way that their students will and to make and overcome the kinds of mistakes they will have to deal with students in class.<br /><br />I hope you have found something interesting here and this article makes you think a little more about how you deliver teacher training in general as the use of these tools isn't just restricted to tech training. They could be integrated into the delivery of any language or teacher training course and to some extent I feel that until tech tools are integrated into mainstream teacher training we aren't going to get the quality and quantity of digitally literate teachers that we need to really provide a 21st century learning environment for our students.<br /><br /><b>Related links:</b><br /><ul><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/05/3-tools-for-exploiting-wifi-during.html">3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2011/06/crowdsourcing-knowledge-with-students.html">Crowdsourcing Knowledge with Students</a> </li><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/49973068/Task-10-Create-a-Video-Q-A-Booth" target="_blank">Create a Video Q&A Booth</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/11/so-ask-me-questions.html" target="_blank">So Ask Me a Question </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2011/04/create-video-questionnaires.html" target="_blank">Create Video Questionnaires</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/04/creating-social-polls-and.html" target="_blank">Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/pros-and-cons-as-web-based-research.html" target="_blank">Pros and Cons as Web Based Research Tasks </a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peachey</div>sokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-24018899716297297762011-06-24T09:51:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.552-08:00Crowdsourcing Knowledge with StudentsOver the last few weeks I have been playing with a very simple brainstorming and voting website called <a href="http://tricider.com/" target="_blank">tricider</a>. The great thing about tricider is that it is incredibly quick and simple to use, and yet it enables users to collect information and opinions from all over the web in a very easily digestible and powerful way.<br /><br />It's very easy to create a <a href="http://tricider.com/" target="_blank">tricider</a> topic or question and you don't even need to register, just type your topic or question into the field.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lVU0JpLu9-c/TgTR0Th14OI/AAAAAAAACXM/t_F-ySPGqww/s1600/tricider1-1.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 164px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lVU0JpLu9-c/TgTR0Th14OI/AAAAAAAACXM/t_F-ySPGqww/s320/tricider1-1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621848931390841058" border="0" /></a><br />You can also add a bit more detail and instructions to guide your students.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YUxWbjCr3ZI/TgTR0SXM02I/AAAAAAAACXU/TAGoGB-p_pg/s1600/tricider2.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 172px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YUxWbjCr3ZI/TgTR0SXM02I/AAAAAAAACXU/TAGoGB-p_pg/s320/tricider2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621848931077772130" border="0" /></a>After you have saved the description, you or your students can start adding solutions.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kl_wWcicj3A/TgTR0vuayQI/AAAAAAAACXc/suIuWEQInWI/s1600/tricider3.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 225px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kl_wWcicj3A/TgTR0vuayQI/AAAAAAAACXc/suIuWEQInWI/s320/tricider3.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621848938959784194" border="0" /></a><br />Once there are some solutions added it's easy to either vote for them or add arguments for or against, using the + or - symbols.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jj8_jXFqnkM/TgTR01pwCzI/AAAAAAAACXk/tBHQnXUPiAM/s1600/tricider5.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 107px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jj8_jXFqnkM/TgTR01pwCzI/AAAAAAAACXk/tBHQnXUPiAM/s320/tricider5.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621848940550818610" border="0" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NvK3i-FvTig/TgTRbAcXF-I/AAAAAAAACXE/hJHvF8gA7NE/s1600/tricider5.png"><br /></a>Once you have set up your page you can add your email so that you get notifications when ever anyone adds something new or votes. You can also get a URL to edit the page (in case anyone adds something offensive) and a separate URL to either share with your students or post to Twtter or Facebook.<br /><br />Here are some examples that I have set up to crowdsource in formation from my PLN.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2gKE" target="_blank">What digital skills do students need for the 21st century?</a></li><li><a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=1STg" target="_blank">How do we encourage pedagogically sound exploitation of technology in language learning?</a></li><li><a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=1vnp" target="_blank">What do you want from a digital coursebook for EFL / ESL?</a></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">So how can we use this with students?</span><br /><ul><li>Set up some controversial statements and get students to vote for the ones they agree / disagree with and leave pro and con comments. You could assign groups of students to all think of pros and another group to think of cons and see which can come up with the most convincing arguments. Example: <a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2wEK" target="_blank">Controversial Issues</a><br /></li><li>Your statements could be about a particular book your students are studying and they could add arguments for or against. Example: <a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2wJn" target="_blank">Goldilocks and the 3 Bears</a><br /></li><li>Get students to brainstorm word or phrases based around a theme. Example: <a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2wPI" target="_blank">Computer Phrases</a><br /></li><li>Get students to vote on a list of topics they want to study. Example: <a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2wUl" target="_blank">Topics</a><br /></li><li>Put up a list of favourite films or books or bands and get students to vote and debate which is best. Example: <a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2waG" target="_blank">Favourite films</a><br /></li><li>Get students to brainstorm, debate and share knowledge about any particular topic or even language point. Example: <a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2wfj" target="_blank">Present Continuous</a><br /></li><li>Set up true false questions to check comprehension of a text.</li><li>Create action research questionnaires to get feedback on the things you do in class. Example: <a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2wlE" target="_blank">Things we do in Class</a><br /></li><li>Create needs analysis questionnaires for your students or other colleagues. Example: <a href="http://tricider.com/t/decide/?show=2wqh" target="_blank">Needs Analysis</a><br /></li><li>Get students create their own questionnaires and circulate them online (through Twitter or Facebook) to collect opinions. You could also get the students to use this information as part of a written assignment.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">What's so good about tricider?</span><br /><ul><li>It's free and really quick and easy to use.</li><li>It's allows people to interact and share opinions.</li><li>It doesn't require any registration.</li><li>It's very simple for students to add their arguments or just vote.</li><li>It updates very quickly so you could use it live in class and just click refresh as students add opinions or vote.</li><li>It's versatile.</li><li>It can help students pull in opinions from outside their classroom and also share opinions beyond their school.</li><li>It creates easily digestible information.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">What's not so good?</span><br /><ul><li>Well there's not much wrong, but a couple of nice extra features would be:</li><li>An embed code to allow me to embed the page into a blog or wiki.</li><li>An archive button to enable me to close some of the debates so they don't go on forever.</li><li>The ability to export the results to pdf or csv.</li></ul>Well I hope you find <a href="http://tricider.com/" target="_blank">tricider</a> a useful tool and please do share any ideas you have for using it in the comments below.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/49973068/Task-10-Create-a-Video-Q-A-Booth" target="_blank">Create a Video Q&A Booth</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/11/so-ask-me-questions.html" target="_blank">So Ask Me a Question </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2011/04/create-video-questionnaires.html" target="_blank">Create Video Questionnaires</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/04/creating-social-polls-and.html" target="_blank">Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/pros-and-cons-as-web-based-research.html" target="_blank">Pros and Cons as Web Based Research Tasks </a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-42161387720766456132011-04-20T15:00:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.634-08:00Create Video Questionnaires<a href="http://intervue.me/" target="_blank">Intervue.me</a> is a new website I have been using recently. It's another website that is based around the use of webcams. The site enables users to create questionnaires and then get the recipients of the questionnaire to leave video recorded answers. The site is very easy to use.<br /><br />Register the go to '<span style="font-weight: bold;">My Dashboard</span>' and click on '<span style="font-weight: bold;">Create New</span>' to start your first questionnaire.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vxoJZZgl6Dw/Ta9fsWxqEeI/AAAAAAAACVk/3iFVIwZexpU/s1600/Intervue-1-5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 199px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vxoJZZgl6Dw/Ta9fsWxqEeI/AAAAAAAACVk/3iFVIwZexpU/s320/Intervue-1-5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597798077477556706" border="0" /></a><br /><br />First you decide on the levels of privacy you want for the questionnaire and whether you want people to be able to leave anonymous answers or add comments to the answers.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MkYmggzJK9M/Ta9fsp8BW9I/AAAAAAAACVs/kG_YPXugRLw/s1600/Intervue-3-5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 313px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MkYmggzJK9M/Ta9fsp8BW9I/AAAAAAAACVs/kG_YPXugRLw/s320/Intervue-3-5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597798082621299666" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Next you click on '<span style="font-weight: bold;">Start adding questions'</span>.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lnBlKTc2b44/Ta9fs4RyFLI/AAAAAAAACV0/-bsiECTjVhE/s1600/Intervue-5-5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 237px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lnBlKTc2b44/Ta9fs4RyFLI/AAAAAAAACV0/-bsiECTjVhE/s320/Intervue-5-5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597798086470669490" border="0" /></a>You can type in your question and give more explanation below the question if you think that makes it clearer. You can add as many questions as you want. You'll also need to click on '<span style="font-weight: bold;">Edit title</span>' so that you can give your questionnaire a name.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4qJU5UUKxKo/Ta9ftLpnb8I/AAAAAAAACV8/Zix3eaH5hCE/s1600/Intervue-6-5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4qJU5UUKxKo/Ta9ftLpnb8I/AAAAAAAACV8/Zix3eaH5hCE/s320/Intervue-6-5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597798091670908866" border="0" /></a><br />Once you have added all your questions you can just click on '<span style="font-weight: bold;">Share</span>' or '<span style="font-weight: bold;">Invite</span>' to either get a URL for your questionnaire or to email it to specific people.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tDyxApH-bbs/Ta9ftDxk3AI/AAAAAAAACWE/YnivJbtwdD8/s1600/Intervue-7-5.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 153px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tDyxApH-bbs/Ta9ftDxk3AI/AAAAAAAACWE/YnivJbtwdD8/s320/Intervue-7-5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597798089556810754" border="0" /></a><br />Then once people receive the questionnaire they just click on the questions and record their answers using the webcam in their laptop.<br /><br />To see all the videos you can just go to '<span style="font-weight: bold;">My Dashboard</span>' and click on the '<span style="font-weight: bold;">Videos</span>' tab.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i8PPhNJi1Jo/Ta9fy6MYc2I/AAAAAAAACWM/YiGXaIs8tNI/s1600/Intervue-8.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 234px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i8PPhNJi1Jo/Ta9fy6MYc2I/AAAAAAAACWM/YiGXaIs8tNI/s320/Intervue-8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597798190064104290" border="0" /></a><br />Here are some example questionnaires I have created. Feel free to leave an answer to any of the questions.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://intervue.me/i/271" target="_blank">Blended learning</a></li><li><a href="http://intervue.me/i/233" target="_blank">How digital is your classroom?</a></li><li><a href="http://intervue.me/i/161" target="_blank">Mobile devices in the classroom</a></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How to use Intervue.me with students</span><br /><ul><li>Create comprehension check questions to go with reading homework so that students also do some speaking for homework.</li><li>Create opinion polls for students to answer.</li><li>Make action research questionnaires</li><li>Play the alibi game and get students to explain where they were and what they were doing at particular points in time.</li><li>Ask students about childhood memories.</li></ul> <span style="font-weight: bold;">What I like about Intervue.me</span><br /><ul><li> It's very quick and easy to create questionnaires</li><li>It's a great way to provide speaking practice for students.<br /></li><li> You can add more detail and explanation to the questions.</li><li> Students get to practice their digital communication skills.</li><li> Students will be able to watch and listen to their replies and rerecord them so this will focus them on accuracy.</li><li> It can be more communicative and engaging than writing down answers as students can also see the other answers that have been recorded.</li><li> You can create long questionnaires or very simple single question ones.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I'm not so sure about.</span><br /><ul><li>It could take time to get students feeling comfortable in front of the camera, so you might need to help them a little and get them to think about lighting and getting the correct distance from the camera.</li><li>Be careful about enabling anonymous replies or comments as this could be abused.</li><li>Students need a laptop with a reasonable quality microphone.</li></ul>I hope you find <a href="http://intervue.me/" target="_blank">Intervue.me</a> useful and that your students get plenty of speaking practice.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/49973068/Task-10-Create-a-Video-Q-A-Booth" target="_blank">Create a Video Q&A Booth</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/11/so-ask-me-questions.html" target="_blank">So Ask Me a Question</a></li><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/49549450/Task-9-Create-a-Video-Dictation-Activity" target="_blank">Create a Video Dictation Activity</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/07/20-webcam-activities-for-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">20 WebCam Activities for EFL ESL Students</a></li><li><a href="http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/nikpeachey/teach-yourself-teach-tech-first-10" target="_blank">Teach Yourself to Teach with Tech</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2011/03/get-your-students-listening-and.html" target="_blank">Get your Students Listening and Interacting with Native Speakers</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-32420504101138145792011-03-17T08:35:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:11.716-08:00Get your Students Listening and Interacting with Native SpeakersListening in the EFL / ESL classroom can be a pretty dull business. Usually it consists of students all listening to the same thing at the same time and doing the same tasks. There's nothing wrong with that, but if you feel the urge to get away from the course book and get your students listening to and interacting with some real native speakers from the safety of their computer then why not check out some of the people on <a href="http://vyou.com/" target="_blank">Vyou.com </a>?<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a8yJEco7cqE/TYIsTz6nzsI/AAAAAAAACUE/TPHyxL3OZfg/s1600/VYou.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 307px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a8yJEco7cqE/TYIsTz6nzsI/AAAAAAAACUE/TPHyxL3OZfg/s320/VYou.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585075206758059714" border="0" /></a>I've already written about how you can set up your own <a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/11/so-ask-me-questions.html" target="_blank">Vyou Q&A video booth</a>, but it's also well worth looking round some of the people who are already there and seeing if there are any your students would be interested in, as a lot of the people there a quite young and some are quite interesting and quirky and <a href="http://vyou.com/" target="_blank">Vyou</a> offers your students the opportunity not only to listen to them and hear a range of accents, but also to ask them questions, though the answers might take a while to come.<br /><br />It's very simple to use. You just go to : and there you can either search through some of the featured people or you can click on channels at the top and look through the more topic related people.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gOg6KhIhsy8/TYItCam8yPI/AAAAAAAACUM/PQUZV7ghohA/s1600/VYou-1.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 106px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gOg6KhIhsy8/TYItCam8yPI/AAAAAAAACUM/PQUZV7ghohA/s320/VYou-1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585076007418513650" border="0" /></a><br />Each person has their own video channel and you can either type in questions below the video or you can click on the questions on the right of the video to listen to the answers to questions that have already been asked.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Here are a few people your students might find interesting</span>.<br /><br />This one is a British guy called Jonny and he claims he will write a song about any subject that readers suggest. There a quite a few there already: <a href="http://vyou.com/Spontaneoussongs" target="_blank">http://vyou.com/Spontaneoussongs </a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d1dpkiBF0L4/TYItCnFtMUI/AAAAAAAACUc/xmk-KN9pN74/s1600/VYou-3.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 239px; height: 285px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-d1dpkiBF0L4/TYItCnFtMUI/AAAAAAAACUc/xmk-KN9pN74/s320/VYou-3.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585076010768740674" border="0" /></a>This one is Loren Rochelle for North America. She works in 'Social Video seeding' (Yes that seems to a job these days). She answers questions about a wide range of things from the personal to the trivial: <a href="http://vyou.com/lorenrochelle" target="_blank">http://vyou.com/lorenrochelle </a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iLZqdRoi_-0/TYItCRcnqsI/AAAAAAAACUU/fk0YlqbjaXw/s1600/VYou-2.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 231px; height: 294px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iLZqdRoi_-0/TYItCRcnqsI/AAAAAAAACUU/fk0YlqbjaXw/s320/VYou-2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585076004959267522" border="0" /></a><br />It's also worth checking out the channels.<br /><br />If you and your students are more interested in literature then there is an ask the author channel where writers answer questions about literature and their books: <a href="http://vyou.com/channels/simonandschuster" target="_blank">http://vyou.com/channels/simonandschuster </a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8vC1bOMoizA/TYItDXtfaPI/AAAAAAAACUs/9tL4kCM1QGs/s1600/VYou-5.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 302px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8vC1bOMoizA/TYItDXtfaPI/AAAAAAAACUs/9tL4kCM1QGs/s320/VYou-5.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585076023820511474" border="0" /></a>If your students are more interested in music, EMI also has a channel where you can submit questions to some of their recording artists: <a href="http://vyou.com/channels/emi" target="_blank">http://vyou.com/channels/emi</a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k2TYfccRI48/TYItC5mu1vI/AAAAAAAACUk/WrBdwlqNCrc/s1600/VYou-4.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 234px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-k2TYfccRI48/TYItC5mu1vI/AAAAAAAACUk/WrBdwlqNCrc/s320/VYou-4.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585076015739098866" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">So how can you exploit this with </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">EFL / ESL</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> students?</span><br /><br /><ul><li>Show students some of the people and get them to think of questions they would like to ask. Then get them to submit the questions (try to get them to submit questions to a few different people) then in the next lesson they can see if they have any answers and share the information they got from the answers (Also good for lessons on reported speech).</li><li>Ask students to choose one person each and give them 5 - 10 minutes to discover as much information as possible about that person. They can then discuss and share the information in class.</li><li>Collect some of the questions that have been asked and get students to think of possible answers, then watch and compare to their own answers and see how much they have in common with each person. Then get students to find the person they are most like.</li><li>Get students to watch two different people and then compare and contrast their character and interests.</li><li>Get students to think of one or two good questions and submit them to a range of people. Then in the next lesson students can check the answers and decide who they think gave the best answer.</li></ul> <span style="font-weight: bold;">What I like about this Vyou</span><br /><ul><li>These are real people that students can interact with.</li><li>The use of the looped introduction videos gives a real sense of presence and this can be much more motivating and engaging for students.</li><li>There's a real wealth of listening materials with various accents on a range of topics.</li><li>The answers are quite short so they aren't too demanding on students concentration despite being 'ungraded' and authentic.</li><li>Students can listen multiple times.</li><li>I've looked at quite a few channels and there doesn't seem to be anything inappropriate or offensive.</li></ul> <span style="font-weight: bold;">What I'm not so sure about</span><br /><ul><li>Some of the channels allow for anonymous submission of questions, so students might be tempted to ask something inappropriate (though they are unlikely to get an answer.)</li><li>It is possible that your students might stumble across something they might find offensive or some bad language, but I haven't found anything like this yet.</li></ul><br />Well I hope you try <a href="http://vyou.com/" target="_blank">Vyou.com</a> and that your students find it engaging, entertaining and useful.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/49973068/Task-10-Create-a-Video-Q-A-Booth" target="_blank">Create a Video Q&A Booth</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/11/so-ask-me-questions.html" target="_blank">So Ask Me a Question</a></li><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/49549450/Task-9-Create-a-Video-Dictation-Activity" target="_blank">Create a Video Dictation Activity</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/07/20-webcam-activities-for-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">20 WebCam Activities for EFL ESL Students</a></li><li><a href="http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/nikpeachey/teach-yourself-teach-tech-first-10" target="_blank">Teach Yourself to Teach with Tech</a></li></ul> Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-21175943686151738282011-01-20T06:14:00.000-08:002013-02-15T02:51:11.799-08:003 More Tasks to Teach Yourself to Teach with TechnologyAt the end of 2010 I published <a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/12/5-tasks-to-teach-yourself-to-teach-with.html" target="_blank">the first 5 tasks in a series</a> to help teacher learn how to use technology with their students. Now I would like to add 3 more tasks to that collection. The first few tasks are all quite simple to lay the ground work and get teachers started. As the series progresses I hope to get on to more adventurous tasks. Please feel free to use these tasks yourself or to share or use them for teacher training.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 6: Creating a video review activity </span><br />In this task you’ll learn how to create a film trailer review activity using film trailers from YouTube and an online notice board called Wallwisher. Here’s an example to look at before you start: <a href="http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/nikstrailers" target="_blank">http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/nikstrailers </a><br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TThJh9hjd1I/AAAAAAAACPY/__hucbHeiJw/s1600/Wallwisher.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 127px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TThJh9hjd1I/AAAAAAAACPY/__hucbHeiJw/s320/Wallwisher.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564278187416057682" border="0" /></a>Wallwisher is a really useful tool for giving students a semi restricted choice of online videos or links to other resources from around the Internet.<br /><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/47249849/Task-6-Creating-a-video-review-activity" target="_blank">Read the task</a></li><li><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/Task6.pdf" target="_blank">Download Task 6</a> (pdf)</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 7: Creating screenshots using Jing</span><br />Jing is a really useful free tool that allows you to create and annotate images grabbed from the screen of your computer.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TThJiKGuu0I/AAAAAAAACPo/XkuELEwj7fA/s1600/jing.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 194px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TThJiKGuu0I/AAAAAAAACPo/XkuELEwj7fA/s320/jing.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564278190793210690" border="0" /></a>This can be really useful for creating instruction sheets like the ones used in this series and helps you to grab images to add into websites or other documents.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/47249872/Task-7-Creating-screenshots-using-Jing" target="_blank">Read the task</a></li><li><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/Task7.pdf" target="_blank">Download Task 7</a> (pdf)</li></ul><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TThJhwNIi-I/AAAAAAAACPg/fr8aC39hiIo/s1600/YouTube.png"><br /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 8: Create your own YouTube channel</span><br />Video has become one of the most useful resources on the Internet for language teachers. There are a great many video sharing websites on the Internet, but YouTube is by far the biggest.<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TThJhwNIi-I/AAAAAAAACPg/fr8aC39hiIo/s1600/YouTube.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 147px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TThJhwNIi-I/AAAAAAAACPg/fr8aC39hiIo/s320/YouTube.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564278183840746466" border="0" /></a>In this task you will create your own YouTube channel. It’s very useful to have your own channel even if you never create your own videos. It enable you to subscribe to other channels, share videos with groups of your students and even annotate and add subtitles to videos. We’ll be doing all those things in future tasks, but in this task you will create your channel and subscribe to some other useful channels.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/47249895/Task-8-Create-your-own-YouTube-channel" target="_blank">Read the task</a></li><li><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/Task8.pdf" target="_blank">Download Task 8</a> (pdf)</li></ul>I hope you find these tasks useful and I hope that you'll soon find some more here.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://http//nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/12/5-tasks-to-teach-yourself-to-teach-with.html" target="_blank">5 Tasks to Teach Yourself to Teach with </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/04/using-online-sticky-noticeboards.html" target="_blank">Using Online Sticky Noticeboards</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/01/cropping-youtube-videos-to-create.html" target="_blank">Cropping YouTube Videos to Create </a><br /></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/04/tutorial-using-videos-from-youtube.html" target="_blank">Tutorial: Using Videos from </a><br /></li><li><a href="http://technogogy.slinkset.com/" target="_blank">Technogogy for edtech news</a><br /></li><li><a href="http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/2008/08/sitemap.html" target="_blank">100 + Online activities for EFL ESL learners</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html" target="_blank">Create your own social network 7 steps</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/09/web-20-tools-for-efl-esl-teachers.html" target="_blank">Web 2.0 Tools for EFL and ESL Teachers</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-teacher-development-task-for-web-20.html" target="_blank">10 Teacher Development Task for Web 2.0 Tools</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-38301722392382325622010-12-16T11:40:00.000-08:002013-02-15T02:51:11.919-08:005 Tasks to Teach Yourself to Teach with TechnologySome months ago I had a plan to write a book of tasks to get teachers using technology. As with so many of my plans and ideas, time and circumstances over took me and I never got further than the first 15 tasks. When I went back to do some more I noticed that I was taking so long doing these that some had gone out of date, so to try to get some use from the tasks I've decided to revise them and start publishing them here so anyone can download them and use them either to do teacher training or to develop their own ability to use technology.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqGM4XNV8I/AAAAAAAACLM/zemd82GAcJA/s1600/NIK_logo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 273px; height: 154px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqGM4XNV8I/AAAAAAAACLM/zemd82GAcJA/s320/NIK_logo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551397046533838786" border="0" /></a>So here are the first five. If they are popular I'll publish the next 5 for new year, so they can be my new years resolution and yours.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 1: Create your learning journal</span><br />So here goes. The first task is based around Penzu and you can download the task or read it on Scribd. In this task you'll create an online journal that you can use to reflect on the other tasks you'll be doing, so you should do this one first.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/45469103/Teach-with-Technology-Task-1" target="_blank">Read the task</a></li><li><a href="http://technogogy.org.uk/Task1.pdf" target="_blank">Download Task 1</a> (pdf)<br /></li></ul><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINRscN8I/AAAAAAAACLk/bOAjgn3v-sE/s1600/Penzu%2B%257C%2BFree%2BOnline%2BDiary%2Band%2BPersonal%2BJournal.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 130px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINRscN8I/AAAAAAAACLk/bOAjgn3v-sE/s320/Penzu%2B%257C%2BFree%2BOnline%2BDiary%2Band%2BPersonal%2BJournal.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551399252357035970" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 2</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">: Create online storage for your teaching images</span><br />In this task you will create a Flickr photo sharing channel. You'll need to do this to enable you to best do some of the later tasks as they come up, but having your own store of images online that you can use for various teaching purposes is always really handy.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/45469101/Teach-with-Technology-Task-2" target="_blank">Read the task</a></li><li><a href="http://technogogy.org.uk/Task2.pdf" target="_blank">Download Task 2</a> (pdf)<br /></li></ul><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINwjRu8I/AAAAAAAACL0/1BRIYOzpn_E/s1600/Welcome%2Bto%2BFlickr%2B-%2BPhoto%2BSharing.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 145px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINwjRu8I/AAAAAAAACL0/1BRIYOzpn_E/s320/Welcome%2Bto%2BFlickr%2B-%2BPhoto%2BSharing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551399260640099266" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 3</span>:<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Create an online speaking activity</span><br />In this task you'll learn how to create an online speaking activity using VoiceThread. So if you have never done that before try the task and see how your students like the activity you create.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/45469106/Teach-with-Technology-Task-3" target="_blank">Read the task</a></li><li><a href="http://technogogy.org.uk/Task3.pdf" target="_blank">Download Task 3</a> (pdf)<br /></li></ul><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINinsdBI/AAAAAAAACLs/mYFcusYFPIE/s1600/VoiceThread%2B-%2BGroup%2Bconversations%2Baround%2Bimages%252C%2Bdocuments%252C%2Band%2Bvideos-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 149px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINinsdBI/AAAAAAAACLs/mYFcusYFPIE/s320/VoiceThread%2B-%2BGroup%2Bconversations%2Baround%2Bimages%252C%2Bdocuments%252C%2Band%2Bvideos-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551399256900531218" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 4</span>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Create a blog with a video activity for your students</span><br />In this task you'll create a simple blog and use it to make a video based activity for your students. Many of you may already have your own blog, but it's a good idea to have a separate one that you can use to experiment with and create activities for students. Once you have created the blog you'll be using it for other tasks as you work through them.<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/45469092/Teach-with-Technology-Task-4"><br /></a><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/45469092/Teach-with-Technology-Task-4" target="_blank">Read the task</a></li><li><a href="http://technogogy.org.uk/Task4.pdf" target="_blank">Download Task 4</a> (pdf)<br /></li></ul><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINUy7GqI/AAAAAAAACLc/gA3jP_xHpiA/s1600/My%2BBookr%2BBook%2B-%2BNik%2BPeachey_s%2BPosterous.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 189px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINUy7GqI/AAAAAAAACLc/gA3jP_xHpiA/s320/My%2BBookr%2BBook%2B-%2BNik%2BPeachey_s%2BPosterous.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551399253189532322" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 5</span>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Create digital books with illustrations</span><br />In this task you will create a digital image book based around a short text. Once you have created the book you will embed it into the blog you created in the previous task.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.scribd.com/Teache-with-Technology-Task-5/d/45469107" target="_blank">Read the task</a></li><li><a href="http://technogogy.org.uk/Task5.pdf" target="_blank">Download Task 5</a> (pdf)<br /></li></ul><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINJs6M3I/AAAAAAAACLU/nk3ytk2-a6M/s1600/Fire%2Band%2BIce%2Bby%2BBy%2BRobert%2BFrost%2B__%2Bbookr%2B__pimpampum.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 195px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TQqINJs6M3I/AAAAAAAACLU/nk3ytk2-a6M/s320/Fire%2Band%2BIce%2Bby%2BBy%2BRobert%2BFrost%2B__%2Bbookr%2B__pimpampum.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551399250211517298" border="0" /></a>If you manage to do any of the tasks please do leave a comment and tell me how they went and if the response is good I'll try to put 5 more tasks on the site early in the new year.<br /><br />So, if you celebrate Xmas please take these as my gift and if you don't celebrate it, you will have more time to do the tasks.<br /><br />Best wishes for 2011.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://technogogy.slinkset.com/" target="_blank">Technogogy for edtech news</a><br /></li><li><a href="http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/2008/08/sitemap.html" target="_blank">100 + Online activities for EFL ESL learners</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html" target="_blank">Create your own social network 7 steps</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/09/web-20-tools-for-efl-esl-teachers.html" target="_blank">Web 2.0 Tools for EFL and ESL Teachers</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-teacher-development-task-for-web-20.html" target="_blank">10 Teacher Development Task for Web 2.0 Tools</a><br /><br /></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-37320133355614349802010-11-24T10:52:00.000-08:002013-02-15T02:51:12.002-08:00So Ask Me a QuestionI recently spotted this very interesting site called <a href="http://vyou.com/" target="_blank">Vyou.com</a> which exploits video to create asynchronous conversations. I find it interesting because of the simple way it creates presence. As you can see below, it looks like the person (me in this case) is waiting ready for your question.<br /><br />All visitors need to do is type a question into the text line below the video and the creator will get a message with the question and post a reply. You can try it if you wish by posting a question to me. I'm not sure yet how long it will take for me to answer though.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://vyou.com//embed/user/widget/400/username/nikpeachey" id="vyouIframe" width="400" height="650" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe><br /><br />This is very quick and easy to set up. You just go to the site and register for free, then once your registration is validated you record two short video clips. One is the one you can see above and another for unanswered questions. As questions are answered they appear below the 'waiting' video.<br /><br />It's also a bit like Twitter in that you can 'follow' people and build up a group of followers. These people all receive notification of any video responses posted.<br /><br />I'm trying this out because I think it's a great way of getting students to speak to each other and ask you or each other questions. All you need is a webcam and a microphone.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />How to use this with students</span><br /><ul><li>You could set up your own grammar or vocabulary answers site and students could send you questions.</li><li>You could get students to ask each other questions about a story.</li><li>You could play animal, mineral or vegetable and each students has to ask question to see what you are thinking about.</li><li>You could just get students asking and answering questions about their likes and dislikes etc.</li><li>I think this would work particularly well for class exchanges with students from other classes or countries.</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I like about it</span><br /><ul><li>It's free and very quick and simple to set up.</li><li>There's a real feeling of presence and that someone is there waiting for your question.</li><li>I can generate some real spoken interaction.</li><li>It's a very simple idea made very effective.</li><li>You can embed the video chat into your blog or site.<br /></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I'm not so sure about</span><br /><ul><li>Of course something like this is very much open to abuse, especially as it allows anonymous questions to be posted.</li><li>The widget which I've embedded into my post is a bit big and it would be nice to have smaller sizes.</li><li>A lot of the example conversations that have been created on the site are a bit adult in nature and certainly inappropriate for younger learners, so if you use it, be sure to use it with adults and embed it into a blog or site so that your students don't wander round the site.</li><li>WebCams aren't generally very flattering, especially in a bad light, but you can always wear a big hat or dark glasses.</li></ul>If you do give this a try, please do follow me and I'll reciprocate, as I'd like to find out a bit more about how this will work in practice. You can visit my profile on the site at: <a href="http://vyou.com/nikpeachey" target="_blank">http://vyou.com/nikpeachey</a> . There you will be able to see a better view of the full size widget.<br /><br />I hope you find this interesting.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/01/quick-twitter-video-activity.html" target="_blank">Quick Twitter Video Activity</a><br /></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/07/20-webcam-activities-for-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">20 WebCam Activities for EFL ESL Students</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/07/sending-bubble-joy-to-your-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/07/microblogging-for-efl-with-plurk.html" target="_blank">Microblogging for EFL with Plurk</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/07/great-video-commenting-tool.html" target="_blank">Great Video Commenting Tool</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/07/video-conferencing-for-efl.html" target="_blank">Video conferencing for EFL</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/07/send-free-video-messages.html" target="_blank">Send Free Video Messages</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/09/animated-music-videos-for-efl.html" target="_blank">Animated Music Videos for EFL </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/02/creating-multimedia-stories.html" target="_blank">Creating multimedia stories</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/04/tutorial-using-videos-from-youtube.html" target="_blank">Tutorial: Using Videos from YouTube</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/07/great-video-commenting-tool.html" target="_blank">Great Video Commenting Tool</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-9122388117533413382010-09-27T01:57:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:12.084-08:00Grow Your Own Personal Learning NetworkWell this is my first blog posting for quite a while, but I'm hoping to have a lot more coming up very soon. This is just a quick posting to share a session on building your own Personal Learning Network, that I did for teachers in British Council Bilbao recently (25th September 2010).<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TKBYCBkdtiI/AAAAAAAACGg/Telg_rGBiQo/s1600/DSC09888.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 194px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/TKBYCBkdtiI/AAAAAAAACGg/Telg_rGBiQo/s320/DSC09888.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521509934960588322" border="0" /></a>The session was part of a larger conference that was happening all over Spain to celebrate 70 years of the BC in Spain.<br /><br />You can watch a recording my conference presentation here.<br /><object id="lsplayer" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="253" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://cdn.livestream.com/grid/LSPlayer.swf?channel=bcbilbao&clip=pla_1c3a56a4-6960-430f-a49a-6440beefbb35&color=0x006ccd&autoPlay=false&mute=false&iconColorOver=0xe4f2ff&iconColor=0xb5dcff"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed name="lsplayer" wmode="transparent" src="http://cdn.livestream.com/grid/LSPlayer.swf?channel=bcbilbao&clip=pla_1c3a56a4-6960-430f-a49a-6440beefbb35&color=0x006ccd&autoPlay=false&mute=false&iconColorOver=0xe4f2ff&iconColor=0xb5dcff" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="253" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br />Or follow this link to it: <a href="http://tinyurl.com/382rmy2" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/382rmy2</a><br /><br />The links from the presentation are also below and you can download a PDF copy of the presentation slides here: <a href="http://technogogy.org.uk/nik_peachey_pln.pdf">PLN Presentation slides</a> (PDF 4.7 Mb)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" ><br />Tools for growing your PLN</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Twitter</span><br /><ul><li>Twitter is a great tool for starting to reach out to a huge network of teachers. <a href="http://twitter.com/" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/</a></li><li>You can follow me and see who I’m following here.<br /><a href="http://twitter.com/NikPeachey" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/NikPeachey</a></li><li>This is a great starter list for Twitter of people involved in ELT who you can follow. It includes some of the real greats of ELT. Thank you to Barbara Sakamoto for putting together this list.<br /><a href="http://twitter.com/barbsaka/starter-pln/members" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/barbsaka/starter-pln/members</a></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">LinkedIn</span><br /><ul><li>LinkedIn is a great place to put your online CV, connect with other ELT professionals and start joining special interest groups. The groups are a great place for sharing and finding information.<br />http://www.linkedin.com</li><li>I'm on LinkedIn at: <a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/in/nikpeachey" target="_blank">http://uk.linkedin.com/in/nikpeachey</a><br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Facebook</span><br /><ul><li>Although controversial as a teaching tool, Facebook can also be a useful professional networking tool, just start looking for the ‘Like’ button on various websites and click it to keep in touch with what’s happening.<a href="http://www.facebook.com/" target="_blank"> http://www.facebook.com</a></li><li>I'm on Facebook too and am in the process of creating a page for people interested in learning technology in ELT.<a href="http://www.facebook.com/NikPeachey" target="_blank"> http://www.facebook.com/NikPeachey</a><br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ning and other independent social networks</span><br /><ul><li>Many of the IATEFL Special interest groups use Ning for discussion of very specific areas of teaching. Here's an example from the Global Issues SIG<br /><a href="http://global-issues.ning.com/" target="_blank">http://global-issues.ning.com/</a><br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yahoo Groups</span><br /><ul><li>They’ve been around for a long time, but there are still some great connections to be made by looking for ELT related Yahoo groups.<br /><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/" target="_blank">http://groups.yahoo.com/</a></li><li>Particularly useful is the Webheads list.<br /><a href="http://webheadsinaction.org/" target="_blank">http://webheadsinaction.org/ </a><br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Blogs of course</span><br />Some great bloggers to follow are:<br /><ul><li>Larry Ferlazzo<br /><a href="http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/larry-ferlazzos-english-website/" target="_blank">http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/larry-ferlazzos-english-website/</a></li><li>Ozge Karaoglu<br /><a href="http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org/" target="_blank">http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org/</a></li><li>Be sure to check out their blogroll and look for connections to other great blogs.</li><li>Find out about more female bloggers here: <a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/let-us-now-praise-famous-women.html" target="_blank">http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/let-us-now-praise-famous-women.html</a></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Feed Readers</span><br /><ul><li>Here is an example of a feed reader page I created. This can make capturing information much easier.<br /><a href="http://www.netvibes.com/Nikpeachey/en%23Teaching_English" target="_blank">http://www.netvibes.com/Nikpeachey/en%23Teaching_English</a></li><li>Create your own using<br /><a href="http://www.netvibes.com/" target="_blank">http://www.netvibes.com/ </a></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Storing links and social bookmarking</span><br />These are great tools for storing links to information so that you can find them when you want them and share them with others.<ul><li>Instapaper<br /><a href="http://www.instapaper.com/" target="_blank">http://www.instapaper.com/</a></li><li>Delicious<br /><a href="http://www.delicious.com/" target="_blank">http://www.delicious.com</a></li><li>You can see my Delicious bookmarks at:<br /><a href="http://www.delicious.com/NikPeachey" target="_blank">http://www.delicious.com/NikPeachey</a></li><li>Diigo<br /><a href="http://diigo.com/" target="_blank">http://diigo.com/</a></li><li>Also check out all the really useful Diigo groups. You can see the ones I'm following here:<br /><a href="http://groups.diigo.com/user/nikpeachey" target="_blank">http://groups.diigo.com/user/nikpeachey</a></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Simplybox</span><br /><ul><li>This is a great bookmarking tool for the more visually stimulated<br /><a href="http://simplybox.com/" target="_blank">http://simplybox.com</a></li><li>You can see an example 'box' of bookmarks here. I've made it public to share tools for creating digital content.<br /><a href="http://simplybox.com/public/?id=145809" target="_blank">http://simplybox.com/public/?id=145809</a></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Here are some tools for reflection</span><br /><ul><li>Keep a personal online diary with Penzu<br /><a href="https://penzu.com/pad" target="_blank">https://penzu.com/pad</a></li><li>Create your own blog just by sending an email to post@posterous.com and wait for the link to come back in your email.<br /><a href="https://posterous.com/" target="_blank">https://posterous.com/</a></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Slinkset</span><br /><ul><li>If you want to share links and get comments on them but don't want to write a blog, then create a portal site. Here’s an example of a portal I created using Slinkset<br /><a href="http://technogogy.slinkset.com/recent" target="_blank">http://technogogy.slinkset.com/recent</a></li><li>You can create your own for free.<br /><a href="http://slinkset.com/" target="_blank">http://slinkset.com/</a></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">More information</span><br /><ul><li>Barabara Sakamoto created this fantastic ‘sticky wall’ for teachers to express what it means to have a PLN. <a href="http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/ChubuTeachers" target="_blank">http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/ChubuTeachers</a></li><li>Read or download this free booklet I wrote to get the technical knowledge and get started creating your own PLN.<br /><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/22124764/From-Information-to-Knowledge" target="_blank">http://www.scribd.com/doc/22124764/From-Information-to-Knowledge</a></li></ul>I'd really like to add a special than you to Barbara Sakamoto from <a href="http://www.teachingvillage.org/" target="_blank">Teaching Village</a> for allowing me to share here work on PLNs and for helping to save me and I hope you a lot of work too.<br /><br />Please also check out the other recorded presentations as they include:<br /><ul><li>Patrick Howarth<a href="http://www.livestream.com/bcvalencia" target="_blank"><br />http://www.livestream.com/bcvalencia</a></li><li>Steve Evans<a href="http://www.livestream.com/britishcouncilspain" target="_blank"><br />http://www.livestream.com/britishcouncilspain</a></li><li>Graham Stanley<a href="http://www.livestream.com/bcbarcelona" target="_blank"><br />http://www.livestream.com/bcbarcelona</a></li></ul>I hope you find these useful and thank you to everyone at the British Council Bilbao for their hospitality and professionalism under pressure.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/pros-and-cons-as-web-based-research.html" target="_blank">Pros and Cons as Web Based Research Tasks</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/04/creating-social-polls-and.html" target="_blank">Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/11/web-20-school-of-present.html" target="_blank">The Web 2.0 School of the Present</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/08/survey-results-mobile-learning-for-elt.html" target="_blank">Survey Results: Mobile learning for ELT</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-65639942236395481652010-05-10T05:50:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:12.166-08:003 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During PresentationsComing as I do from a background in language teaching that emphasises that the teacher should shut up and get the students to do the talking, I often feel uncomfortable doing conference presentations, many of which still follow the format of; speaker gets up in front of audience with presentation - does presentation - audience listen (try to stay awake) and desperately try to think of a few questions at the end to prove they were awake and listening.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4039/4507565306_aa640667f2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 398px; height: 230px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4039/4507565306_aa640667f2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">One of the gifted- Jamie Keddie.</span><br /></div><br />There are of course a few gifted speakers who can hold the audience’s attention for a full hour and keep most of them listening and awake. If like me you’re not one of those, then here are a few tools that, thanks to the increasing availability of wireless connectivity at conference centres these days, might help to turn your passive listeners into a bunch of multitasking audience collaborators.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Set up a backchannel</span><br />One of my favourite tools to use during presentations is Today’sMeet <a href="http://todaysmeet.com/" target="_blank">http://todaysmeet.com/</a> . It’s a great tool for setting up backchannels. A backchannel is basically what your students create when they talk among themselves or text each other during your lesson.<br /><ul><li>The advantage of setting one of these up to allow your audience to do this is that you can capture and share what your audience is saying while they are listening to you and enable them to collaborate and share with each other what they know about the topic and links to any relevant resources.<br /></li><li>It can also help them to type in questions as they think of them rather than waiting for you to ask at the end, and for me it’s a great way to pass out URLs to interesting websites to give the audience some hands on participation during the presentation.</li><li>It’s also a good way of getting the audience to brainstorm and do tasks together, just ask a few questions and get them to type in answers, and they’ll appear in the backchannel window for everyone to see.</li></ul><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S-gYBM1pjXI/AAAAAAAAB-o/fhqR4AlPHXY/s1600/TodaysMeet.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 191px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S-gYBM1pjXI/AAAAAAAAB-o/fhqR4AlPHXY/s320/TodaysMeet.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469648156346649970" border="0" /></a><br />Setting up a back channel with Today’s Meet takes about 60 seconds. You just type in a name for your channel and launch it. You can select how long you want the channel to be available (from two hours to a year) and if you have people in your audience posting updates to Twitter, you can select a hashtag (#) specific to your talk so that their ‘tweets’ appear alongside the backchannel chat window.<br /><ul><li>You can read more about backchannels here ‘<a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/06/tap-into-backchannel-in-your.html" target="_blank">Tap into the Backchannel in Your Presentation</a>’</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Live polling</span><br />Getting audience response during presentations can be done quite easily by getting a show of hands, but I tend to find that pretty unsatisfying in terms of capturing and sharing data, so I’ve started using a polling / survey tool called Urtak <a href="http://urtak.com/" target="_blank">http://urtak.com/</a> during presentations.<br /><ul><li>With Urtak you can prepare a number of short online polls to to get your audience to do during the presentation.</li></ul><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S82kX_5sieI/AAAAAAAAB7g/q2Zpy2qE66Q/s320/Urtak+%7C+Teachers_+digital+skills+tick+list.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 250px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S82kX_5sieI/AAAAAAAAB7g/q2Zpy2qE66Q/s320/Urtak+%7C+Teachers_+digital+skills+tick+list.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li>Just send the URL to them using your backchannel and then you can show and capture your audience response live during your session, as Urtak collects and shares results as soon as people vote.</li><li>If you are logged in during your presentation it’s even quick and easy enough to create short polls on the fly and pass out the URL through your backchannel.</li></ul> Here’s an example one I created for a presentation on digital teaching skills that you can look at: <a href="http://urtak.com/u/1826" target="_blank">http://urtak.com/u/1826</a> . Urtak even enables the audience to add questions if they register and log in.<ul><li>You can read more about Urtak at ‘<a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/04/creating-social-polls-and.html" target="_blank">Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak</a>’</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Make note taking collaborative</span><br />Many listeners at presentations do their best to keep notes during presentations, so if your audience has wireless connectivity why not get them to do this collaboratively? A great tool for doing this is Sync.in <a href="http://sync.in/" target="_blank">http://sync.in/</a> .<br /><br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S-gY7Ye0xsI/AAAAAAAAB-w/O2UBej2K8Ss/s1600/Sync.in_+oFyx6tDCqi.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 186px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S-gY7Ye0xsI/AAAAAAAAB-w/O2UBej2K8Ss/s320/Sync.in_+oFyx6tDCqi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469649155904554690" border="0" /></a>It has a desktop launcher that your simply click to create an online collaborative note taking pad. You then share the URL for each pad with your audience and they can then work in groups to assemble notes and comments on your presentation as you go or work on collaborative tasks that you can set them.<br /></li><li>The texts can then be saved by each person at the end of the presentation or they can even continue to refine the notes after the presentation is over. Sync.in also has a handy text chat room which runs alongside each document that’s created, so collaborators can discuss things and ask questions as they work. See <a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/05/collaborative-text-editing-tool.html">Collaborative Text Editing Tool</a> for more information on Sync.in.<br /></li></ul>Of course these tools aren’t just useful for conference presentations, but can be used for online training webinars as well as classroom teaching if you work in a wireless enabled classroom environment. Be sure to practice with them one at a time first for short tasks as you gradually build them in to your presentation skills repertoire.<br /><br />Good luck and I hope you find these tools useful and soon have your audience multitasking as well as listening.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/let-us-now-praise-famous-women.html">Let us Now Praise Famous Women</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/11/web-20-school-of-present.html">The Web 2.0 School of the Present</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2010/04/creating-social-polls-and.html" target="_blank">Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using Urtak</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/06/survey-creation-tool-for-students.html" target="_blank">Survey Creation Tool for Students</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/10/create-quick-online-polls.html" target="_blank">Create Quick Online Polls</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/07/create-esl-efl-video-quiz.html" target="_blank">Create an ESL EFL Video Quiz</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/01/make-your-own-chat-room.html" target="_blank">Make your own chat room</a></li><li><a set="yes" linkindex="39" href="http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/2008/09/express-your-opinions.html" target="_blank">Express Your Opinions</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-74647169684955404662010-05-03T07:01:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:12.249-08:003D Computer Games with Young Learners: SporeIn a recent digital skills survey I carried out using Urtak I discovered that more than 50% of digitally skilled teachers don't feel able to utilise 2D and 3D computer games to achieve pedagogical goals (<a href="http://urtak.com/u/1826?o=most_divided%7CASC&f=st%7Caa&page=1&question_id=33199" target="_blank">See survey</a>), so I've been looking around and exploring some possibilities. The first of these is the Spore Creature Creator. Spore is a game which allows you to create creatures and evolve them along with their environment, all the way through to a space traveling society.<br /><br />The free trial creature creator that we will be looking at allows you to create creatures, take snap shots of them and make videos of them to see how they move. Here's an example of a video I created to get students interested. I added the captions and text using i-Movie though you could just as easily use a free online video editor such as <a href="http://videotoolbox.com/" target="_blank">Video Toolbox </a>or Windows Moviemaker if you are using a PC.<br /><br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ezAhX_SDLfo&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ezAhX_SDLfo&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="300" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br />The creatures are very easy to create, you just drag and drop different features onto a body and the add colour and test them out to see how they move. These are some of the other creatures I created.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S976Tfo3MQI/AAAAAAAAB9g/bdpJMv8Lt40/s1600/CRE_Maxondra-0684da59_ful.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S976Tfo3MQI/AAAAAAAAB9g/bdpJMv8Lt40/s320/CRE_Maxondra-0684da59_ful.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467082210491707650" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S9750ccC7MI/AAAAAAAAB9Q/5YVet-nsB2A/s1600/CRE_-09f4fc3a_ful.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S9750ccC7MI/AAAAAAAAB9Q/5YVet-nsB2A/s320/CRE_-09f4fc3a_ful.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467081677056699586" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S976Dio5vrI/AAAAAAAAB9Y/48CraxAhIP4/s1600/CRE_-09f502e3_ful.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S976Dio5vrI/AAAAAAAAB9Y/48CraxAhIP4/s320/CRE_-09f502e3_ful.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467081936419274418" border="0" /></a><br />Once you have created your creatures you can either make videos of them, take snapshots, which you can either save or email to someone, or create an animated gif of your creature (I wasn't too impressed with the quality of the animated gifs)<br /><br />Here' a tutorial showing you how it's done.<br /><br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YM3ys6uqC-o&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YM3ys6uqC-o&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="300" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br />You can download a <a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/Spore_tutorial.mov" target="_blank">.mov version</a> of the tutorial here or <a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/Spore_instructions.pdf" target="_blank">this pdf document</a> has the main screen shots and instructions if you'd prefer to follow on paper.<br /><br />You can download the Creature Creator from the <a href="http://download.cnet.com/Spore-Creature-Creator/3000-7483_4-10854986.html" target="_blank">Cnet website here</a>. It's a big download (205MB), but once you have it, you don't need to have web access to do any of the tasks or create the movies and snapshots.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How do we use this with students?</span><br /><ul><li>Create images of different creatures and get the students to create a story about them.</li><li>Get the students to create descriptions of different creatures - This could include appearance, but also likes and dislikes, habits etc. </li><li>Get students to match pictures to descriptions. </li><li>Get students to create a creature based around your description.</li><li>Create a creature and use a picture of it as a picture dictation with one student describing the picture while the other one recreates the creature using the software.</li><li>Get students to create a short video of their creature and add a description and narrative below it as a video project.<br /></li><li>Ask students to create a creature suitable for a particular environment, or types of tasks, then get students to discuss which they think would be best adapted for the environment.</li><li>Get the students to write instructions for how to create a creature.</li><li>Use the creatures to demonstrate present continuous tenses ( sitting, running etc.)<br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I like about it.</span><br /><ul><li>It looks great on a data projector and if you work in a single computer classroom, you can get students up and dragging things around and creating in front of the class.</li><li>The creatures are very colourful and in the environment mode they really start to take on character.</li><li>You can use the tool to create versatile and stimulating materials.</li><li>It's free and pretty easy to use once you get it installed.</li><li>I like the integration with YouTube as it makes it very easy to get your videos online quite quickly.</li><li>I like that they can produce a range of gestures and expressions.<br /></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I'm not so sure about.</span><br /><ul><li>It's a big download and will need to be installed on any computer it is used on, so if you want to use it in your school computer room, you'll need the help of a supportive IT manager to get it downloaded and installed on all the computers.</li><li>The Gifs it creates aren't that good, but you don't really need to use them.</li><li>You need a fairly good computer with a good graphics card for it to work well.</li></ul>I hope you enjoy trying some of these ideas with your students.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://www2.blogger.com/Students%20http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/09/adventure-narratives-for-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">Adventure Narratives for EFL ESL </a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/09/educational-games-that-really-are-fun.html" target="_blank">Educational Games That Really Are Fun</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/11/exploiting-two-computer-based-rpgs_09.html" target="_blank">Exploiting two computer-based RPGs</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/05/games-with-purpose-and-social-network.html" target="_blank">Games With a Purpose and a Social Network</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/12/3b-village-3d-browser.html" target="_blank">3B Village 3D browser</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/12/create-your-own-game.html" target="_blank">Create your own game</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/09/online-water-conservation-game.html" target="_blank">Online Water Conservation Game</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/08/wonderland-virtual-world-and-mmorpg.html" target="_blank">Wonderland Virtual World and MMORPG</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/07/googles-lively-competitor-with-second.html" target="_blank">Google's Lively Competitor with Second Life?</a> </li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/12/3b-village-3d-browser.html" target="_blank">3B Village 3D browser</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/11/machinima-with-moviestorm.html" target="_blank">Machinima with</a><br /></li></ul><br />Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-85676196283799492612010-04-20T05:44:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:12.333-08:00Creating Social Polls and Questionnaires Using UrtakI discovered <a href="http://urtak.com/" target="_blank">Urtak</a> a couple of weeks ago and took an instant liking to it. Urtak is a web based social polling application that enables you to very quickly and easily create online polls and questionnaires.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S82kX_5sieI/AAAAAAAAB7g/q2Zpy2qE66Q/s1600/Urtak+%7C+Teachers_+digital+skills+tick+list.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 250px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S82kX_5sieI/AAAAAAAAB7g/q2Zpy2qE66Q/s320/Urtak+%7C+Teachers_+digital+skills+tick+list.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462202655267654114" border="0" /></a>The only thing you require to get started is an email address to register as it is completely free. Here’s a short tutorial showing how it’s done.<br /><br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cTJvg6Zq5dU&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cTJvg6Zq5dU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="300" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br /><ul><li>Watch or download a higher quality video: <a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/urtak.mov" target="_blank">Urtak tutorial</a></li></ul>The polls it creates are pretty simple. You just type in 'Yes , No' questions or statements and then click enter, give your poll a title and instructions and click on done. It seems like you can have as many questions as you like. The longest one I created had 45. Here are a couple that I created. Feel free to try them out and answer the questions to see how they work. You'll also be able to see the results.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://urtak.com/u/1826" target="_blank">Teachers' digital skills tick list</a></li><li><a href="http://urtak.com/u/1800" target="_blank">Teaching Kids with Computers</a></li><li><a href="http://urtak.com/u/1766" target="_blank">Politics in the classroom</a></li></ul>Once your poll is complete you can either link to it via the URL or embed it into a web page.<br /><br />Once the poll is live anyone who sees the poll can answer it without having to log in or register. Viewers can even add additional questions or statements to the poll if they do register though.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I like about it.</span><br /><ul><li>Once users vote they can compare their answers to other people who have used the poll. </li><li>The poll gives a feed out of information on the right and you can even cross tabulate answers to different questions.</li><li>It’s great that other people can add questions to the poll. </li><li>I like that it doesn’t give the ‘correct’ answer but shows most popular answers. This is good to keep students thinking and questioning themselves.</li><li>If you don’t like the questions that people add to your poll you can easily get rid of them.</li><li>You can embed the poll into other web based materials.<br /></li><li>It’s free and really quick and easy to use.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">How can we use this with students?</span><br /><ul><li>We can use it for class / online surveys and get students to analyse and write up the results.</li><li>We can use it for action research to find out what things we do in class students enjoy or understand or just to get general feedback.</li><li>We can use it to test comprehension by creating question or statements about an online text.</li><li>We can set web research tasks for students by asking questions and getting them to search the web to find answers or find out if statements are true.</li><li>We can use it to create progress tests to evaluate the effectiveness of our teaching.<br /></li><li>We can use it to create debate and explore attitudes by giving students the poll before they come in to class to get them thinking around topics to discuss in class. We could also follow this up with a post class poll to see if opinions have changed at all.</li><li>We could use it for needs analysis to see what students feel they need to study in class.</li><li>We can use it to get students to self assess their progress.</li><li>We can get students to create their own reading tasks by getting them to produce questions in a poll based around an online text, then they can answer each other’s questions.(Great to use with <a href="http://mashpedia.com/" target="_blank">Mashpedia</a>)<br /></li><li>We can get students to practice Yes No questions forms and create questionnaires to find out more about their class mates.<br /></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I’m not so sure about.</span><br /><ul><li>At present any poll you create is added to the Urtak directory, so it would be nice to have private URLs to ensure only your students answered the questions.</li><li>It might also be handy to be able to disable the option to have other people add questions to your polls as you can’t be sure that what they add will be relevant etc.</li><li>If students go to the directory of all polls they might find some unsuitable and potentially offensive ones.</li></ul>On the whole though I think <a href="http://urtak.com/" target="_blank">Urtak</a> is a great free tool and one that I will continue to use. It’ helped me to make designing web based materials a bit more interactive and also enabled me to quickly and easily do research that I can share and use to inform training and workshop presentations.<br /><br />I hope you find it useful too.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/04/create-authentic-web-based-research.html" target="_blank">Create Authentic Web Based Research Tasks With Mashpedia</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/06/survey-creation-tool-for-students.html" target="_blank">Survey Creation Tool for Students</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/10/create-quick-online-polls.html" target="_blank">Create Quick Online Polls</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/07/create-esl-efl-video-quiz.html" target="_blank">Create an ESL EFL Video Quiz</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/09/education-for-global-economy.html" target="_blank">Education for the Global Economy</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-23590947990242779062010-04-03T05:19:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:12.417-08:00A Tick List of 21st Century Digital Skills for TeachersI've just been brainstorming digital skills that I believe are required by teachers in the 21st Century. So far I've come up with 45 of them.<br /><br />What's striking for me about this is:<br /><ul><li>few of these skills will have been taught to anyone who trained as a teacher longer than 5 years ago.</li><li>few of these skills are being taught to teachers training now.</li><li>the 21st century teacher needs to be a pretty amazingly skilled professional.</li></ul>Please look through the list and tick on the ones you believe you have.<br /><br /><a href="http://urtak.com/u/1826">Teachers Digital Skills Tick List</a><br /><br /><script src="http://assets.urtak.com/javascripts/widget.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br /><a key="lkmfmc2z5lwwczm0m1kmolgamabfgbow" href="http://urtak.com/u/1826" style="display: none;">Teachers' digital skills tick list</a><br /><br />I'd also be very interested in any comments about any you think I've missed or that you think don't belong there.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/12/online-video-what-does-it-have-to-offer.html">Online Video: What does it have to offer teachers and learners?</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/05/using-wikis-for-teacher-development.html">Using wikis for teacher development</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-teacher-development-task-for-web-20.html">10 Teacher Development Task for Web 2.0 Tools</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/07/creating-personal-homepage.html">Creating a personal homepage</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html">Create your own social network 7 steps</a></li><li><a href="http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/2008/08/sitemap.html">120 + Online Activities for Students</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-37823839211495363542010-01-13T06:46:00.000-08:002013-02-15T02:51:12.498-08:00Cropping YouTube Videos to Create ActivitiesUsing YouTube videos with students can be really great, but finding a video with the exact language you want and at a suitable length with too many other distractions around can be really difficult. That's why <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/" target="_blank">SafeShare.TV</a> is so useful.<br /><br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03iMgo5vwI/AAAAAAAAB60/-4grNlMvXxM/s1600-h/SafeShare.TV+-+The+Safest+Way+To+Share+YouTube+videos.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 295px; height: 89px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03iMgo5vwI/AAAAAAAAB60/-4grNlMvXxM/s320/SafeShare.TV+-+The+Safest+Way+To+Share+YouTube+videos.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426241830599114498" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/">SafeShare.TV </a>is a tool that has two primary functions. The first is to enable you to share YouTube videos using a direct URL that frames the video without the advertising and other distracting features that might cause students to wander off into less suitable materials.</li><li>The second and perhaps even more useful function of <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/" target="_blank">SafeShare.TV</a> is that it enable you to crop the video clip so that only a particular part is shown. This is particularly useful when you want to build activities or tasks around clips that focus students on particular linguistic features.</li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">How to use SafeShare.TV</span><br />First find a YouTube clip that has a section that you would like to use. I chose this one from ‘Room with a View’ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tehft3GDw6k" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tehft3GDw6k</a>. At 9 mins it's quite long so I just wanted to use a few sections.<br /><br />Copy the URL and then go to: <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/" target="_blank">http://www.safeshare.tv/</a>. Paste the link into the field then click on ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">Generate safe link</span>’.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03eL08TjjI/AAAAAAAAB6U/s9SP3uEfVCg/s1600-h/SafeShare.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03eL08TjjI/AAAAAAAAB6U/s9SP3uEfVCg/s320/SafeShare.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426237420822826546" border="0" /></a>This will create a new link to the video which you can then use with your students to show them the clip.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03d2ToOIRI/AAAAAAAAB6M/ytxKCMhATl4/s1600-h/SafeShare2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 177px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03d2ToOIRI/AAAAAAAAB6M/ytxKCMhATl4/s320/SafeShare2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426237051102961938" border="0" /></a>When the students open the link they will only see the single video clip with it’s title, like the example below.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03ej4vssYI/AAAAAAAAB6c/k_bb_Bv_Nxk/s1600-h/safeshare3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 206px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03ej4vssYI/AAAAAAAAB6c/k_bb_Bv_Nxk/s320/safeshare3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426237834160550274" border="0" /></a>If you want to crop the clip so that only a short part of it shows, then generate your safe URL and then click on the link that says '<span style="font-weight: bold;">Do you want to only share a part of the video? click to crop</span>.' This will open a small video viewer. Click the video to watch it, then click on ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">Set Start</span>’ at the beginning of the segment you want students to see. Watch the segment and click ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">Set End</span>’ at the end of the segment. Now click ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">OK</span>’<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03e2anLauI/AAAAAAAAB6k/CXuYGpcgJts/s1600-h/SafeShare4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 287px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03e2anLauI/AAAAAAAAB6k/CXuYGpcgJts/s320/SafeShare4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426238152489265890" border="0" /></a><br />Once you have clicked '<span style="font-weight: bold;">OK</span>' your safe link will be adapted to only show the section of the video you have selected. You can then either copy the link to share with students or share it through a variety of social networking mediums.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03fIklzCzI/AAAAAAAAB6s/UAlik5h2EfE/s1600-h/safeshare5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 301px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/S03fIklzCzI/AAAAAAAAB6s/UAlik5h2EfE/s320/safeshare5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426238464405474098" border="0" /></a><br />Here's a quick video tutorial showing how to do this.<br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qYbbjvSshVQ&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qYbbjvSshVQ&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="300" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br />You can download <a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/safeshare.mov">this video here</a> or download a copy for <a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/safeshare_iPod.m4v">i-Touch or i-Phone here</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How can we use this with students?</span><br />Clipping videos makes it much easier for us to create activities and tasks that focus on specific areas of the video clip without having to watch the whole thing.<br /><ul><li>You can select example phrases to show the use of language in context, such as a telephone call or a scene that shows someone booking into a hotel etc.<br />Here’s an example: <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/rQK_ggxbO44?b=05:25&e=06:42" target="_blank">Booking a hotel room</a> This was trimmed from a much longer clip on YouTube<br /></li><li>You can show students the beginning to a clip and ask them to predict what’s ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">going to</span>’ happen next.<br /><br />Here are two examples:<br />1. <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=00:01&e=00:08" target="_blank">What's going to happen? </a><br />2. <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=05:35&e=06:09" target="_blank">What's going to happen? </a><br /></li></ul><ul><li>You can show the beginning and end of a clip and ask students to predict what ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">has happened</span>’ in between.<br /><br />Example:<br />They watch <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=00:01&e=00:08" target="_blank">this one</a><br />Then <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=00:32&e=01:01" target="_blank">this one</a><br /></li></ul><ul><li>You can show students a number of sections from the same clip and ask them to order them either by using linguistic or visual clues and explain their rationale.<br /><br />Here are 5 clips for you to try to order:<br /><a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=03:23&e=03:44" target="_blank">Clip 1</a><br /><a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=05:35&e=06:09" target="_blank">Clip 2</a><br /><a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=00:01&e=00:08" target="_blank">Clip 3</a><br /><a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=02:57&e=03:12" target="_blank">Clip 4</a><br /><a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=00:32&e=01:01" target="_blank">Clip 5</a><br /></li></ul><ul><li>You can show each student in a group a different sections of the clip (like the 5 sections above) and then ask them to work together to describe the part they watched and put the different sections into the correct order as a group.</li><li>You can use the sections to focus on the use of specific structures, like this one for ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">should have</span>’ <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=02:57&e=03:12" target="_blank">Should have clip</a> or this one for the use of <span style="font-weight: bold;">3rd conditional</span> <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k?b=03:23&e=03:44" target="_blank">3rd conditional clip</a><br /></li><li>At the end of these types of activities you can show them the complete clip. <a href="http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k" target="_blank">http://www.safeshare.tv/v/Tehft3GDw6k</a><br /></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I like about it</span><br /><ul><li>It’s free and easy to use</li><li>It gets your students right to the part of the video you want them to see</li><li>It allows you to easily split videos into shorter clips</li><li>there’s a simple ‘bookmarklet’ that you can drag to your favourites bar, then whenever you find a YouTube clip your want to use you just click on it to get the SafeShare.TV link.</li></ul> <span style="font-weight: bold;">What I’m not so sure about</span><br /><ul><li>Sometimes it doesn’t work on my MAC</li><li>It would be great to have an embed code as well as a URL</li></ul>Well those are some suggestions to get you started cropping YouTube videos. I hope you find them useful.<br /><br />You can find 25 more <a href="ttp://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/search/label/video" target="_blank">video related activities for EFL and ESL students here</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2010/01/quick-twitter-video-activity.html" target="_blank">Quick Twitter Video Activity</a><br /></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/07/20-webcam-activities-for-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">20 WebCam Activities for EFL ESL Students</a></li><li><a set="yes" linkindex="48" href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/07/sending-bubble-joy-to-your-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students</a></li><li><a set="yes" linkindex="49" href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/07/microblogging-for-efl-with-plurk.html" target="_blank">Microblogging for EFL with Plurk</a></li><li><a set="yes" linkindex="13" href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/07/great-video-commenting-tool.html" target="_blank">Great Video Commenting Tool</a></li><li><a set="yes" linkindex="14" href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/07/video-conferencing-for-efl.html" target="_blank">Video conferencing for EFL</a></li><li><a set="yes" linkindex="15" href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/07/send-free-video-messages.html" target="_blank">Send Free Video Messages</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/09/animated-music-videos-for-efl.html" target="_blank">Animated Music Videos for EFL </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/02/creating-multimedia-stories.html" target="_blank">Creating multimedia stories</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/08/12-second-video-clips-for-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">12 Second Video Clips for EFL ESL</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/04/tutorial-using-videos-from-youtube.html" target="_blank">Tutorial: Using Videos from YouTube</a></li><li><a set="yes" linkindex="13" href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/07/great-video-commenting-tool.html" target="_blank">Great Video Commenting Tool</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-61176302824986036692009-11-24T12:45:00.000-08:002013-02-15T02:51:12.582-08:0010 Teacher Development Task for Web 2.0 ToolsOver the last couple of months I've been busy travelling round a bit and doing some face to face training and workshops. As part of the materials for these workshops I created a number of tasks for teachers which I hope will help develop their ability to use technology and to evaluate and create materials using web based tools. I've decide now to share those tasks so anyone who wants to use them to train other teachers or to develop their own skills can take advantage of and make good use of them.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxYW0OBV6I/AAAAAAAAB3I/DXAxf1WhIIg/s1600/shark.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 234px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxYW0OBV6I/AAAAAAAAB3I/DXAxf1WhIIg/s400/shark.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407794401562941346" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:78%;">Capturing the art shark <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/artolog/1693491849/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/artolog/1693491849/</a></span><br /></div><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span>There are ten tasks and they can be done in any order, except for the tenth one which should be last. Please feel free to use and share these tasks and by all means leave any comments or suggestions for improvement. I will also be hosting a teacher development week using and discussing these tasks and the related tools from 7th to 15th December 2009 on the SEETA Moodle site: <a href="http://www.seeta.eu/" target="_blank">http://www.seeta.eu/</a> so by all means come along for that if you want to share ideas and learn a bit more together.<br /><h3>10 Tasks to help teachers develop their use of learning technology</h3><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 1</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxW-q-SfGI/AAAAAAAAB3A/bsArA5NzGyk/s1600/TokBox.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 143px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxW-q-SfGI/AAAAAAAAB3A/bsArA5NzGyk/s400/TokBox.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407792887252548706" border="0" /></a>This task explores the use of <a href="http://www.tokbox.com/" target="_blank">TokBox</a>, a synchronous and asynchronous video conferencing and communication tool. In this task you will look at and evaluate some teaching materials I have created using the tool and see how you can use it to create your own materials.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/tasks.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 2</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxWwwWPsMI/AAAAAAAAB24/7GxGUP31LaU/s1600/Voxopop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 73px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxWwwWPsMI/AAAAAAAAB24/7GxGUP31LaU/s400/Voxopop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407792648177037506" border="0" /></a>This task explores the use of <a href="http://www.voxopop.com/" target="_blank">Voxopop</a>, a tool for the creation of web based audio discussion threads. In this task you will see how other teachers have used the tool and have the opportunity to participate and contribute to an online audio thread.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task2.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 3</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxWkuftXrI/AAAAAAAAB2w/gUy3aYjjIwg/s1600/Forvo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 70px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxWkuftXrI/AAAAAAAAB2w/gUy3aYjjIwg/s400/Forvo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407792441521430194" border="0" /></a>This task explores how <a href="http://forvo.com/" target="_blank">Forvo</a>, the web based pronunciation dictionary, works and what it can offer teachers and learners. In this task you will explore some of the entries and have a chance to add your own example pronunciations to the dictionary.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task3.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 4</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxWY4doLtI/AAAAAAAAB2o/ZXCMPf6Fdy8/s1600/Listen+and+Write.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 201px; height: 65px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxWY4doLtI/AAAAAAAAB2o/ZXCMPf6Fdy8/s400/Listen+and+Write.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407792238038626002" border="0" /></a>This tasks explores the design of <a href="http://www.listen-and-write.com/" target="_blank">Listen and Write</a>, a tool for the creation of web based dictation activities. In this task you will be able to try a dictation exercise and see how autonomous learning is supported through the design of the tool. You will also have the chance to create your own activity.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task4.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 5</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxWLY38b8I/AAAAAAAAB2g/mIu5Pay4F8s/s1600/ESL+Video.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 201px; height: 87px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxWLY38b8I/AAAAAAAAB2g/mIu5Pay4F8s/s400/ESL+Video.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407792006220771266" border="0" /></a>This task explores the use of <a href="http://eslvideo.com/index.php" target="_blank">ESL Video</a>, the web based video activity creation tool . In this task you will be able to examine and compare three different video activities to see how the tool can be exploited. You can then attempt to create your own activity based around a video clip of a bank robbery.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task5.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 6</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxV-F-NWuI/AAAAAAAAB2Y/6aJXQ9FYqVA/s1600/280+Slides.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 83px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxV-F-NWuI/AAAAAAAAB2Y/6aJXQ9FYqVA/s400/280+Slides.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407791777808472802" border="0" /></a>This task explores the use of <a href="http://280slides.com/" target="_blank">280 Slides</a>, a web based tool for creating online presentations. In this task you will see how you can use the tool to add video or images to presentations and so create video based learning activities or multi media presentations.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task6.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 7</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxVxrZ8e4I/AAAAAAAAB2Q/34Fr0wby6HY/s1600/Dfilm.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 70px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxVxrZ8e4I/AAAAAAAAB2Q/34Fr0wby6HY/s400/Dfilm.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407791564518620034" border="0" /></a>This task explores the use of <a href="http://www.dfilm.com/live/moviemaker.html" target="_blank">Dvolver</a>, a very simple tool for creating animated movies. In this task you will be able to watch a video created using the tool and then evaluate its potential and limitations whilst creating your own animated video.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task7.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 8</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxVVYf7ewI/AAAAAAAAB2A/PgDwtXDlJ0A/s1600/Wallwisher.com.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 88px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxVVYf7ewI/AAAAAAAAB2A/PgDwtXDlJ0A/s400/Wallwisher.com.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407791078407109378" border="0" /></a>This task explores the use of <a href="http://www.wallwisher.com/" target="_blank">Wallwisher</a>, a web based 'sticky notes' notice-board. In this task you will be able to look at how the notice board has been used to share a range of web 2.0 tools and also have the opportunity to contribute your own favourite site to a notice-board to see how it works.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task8.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 9</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxVlCN2aFI/AAAAAAAAB2I/8Zp_z50W9d8/s1600/Wordle.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 94px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxVlCN2aFI/AAAAAAAAB2I/8Zp_z50W9d8/s400/Wordle.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407791347303606354" border="0" /></a>This task examines the use of <a href="http://www.wordle.net/create" target="_blank">Wordle</a>, a web based tool for creating graphic representation of texts based on word frequency. In this task you will learn how to create your own graphic image based on a news article and explore some potential uses for the tool.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task9.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a><br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Task 10</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxVGSyDr4I/AAAAAAAAB14/0u8_vwlwY5s/s1600/Penzu.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 106px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SwxVGSyDr4I/AAAAAAAAB14/0u8_vwlwY5s/s400/Penzu.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407790819174494082" border="0" /></a>This final task looks at <a href="https://penzu.com/p" target="_blank">Penzu</a>, a simple tool for keeping a web based journal. In this task you explore how to create your own journal and then create your own reflective journal entry based on the work you have done in the previous task.<br /><a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/task10.html" target="_blank">Go to task</a></li></ul>I hope you find these tasks useful. Please do leave a comment or suggestion for improvement or any recommendations for links or other examples of materials created using these tools.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/2008/08/sitemap.html" target="_blank">100 + Online activities for EFL ESL learners</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html" target="_blank">Create your own social network 7 steps</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/09/web-20-tools-for-efl-esl-teachers.html" target="_blank">Web 2.0 Tools for EFL and ESL Teachers</a><br /></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-53322383028085772172009-10-27T04:11:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:12.664-08:00Creating an Online Journal for CPDThe importance of careful thought and reflection on what we do as both teachers and learners can not be overestimated in terms of the learning process and retaining information in a way that we can actually use it and make it part of our experience and practice.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Sub-2aAgY0I/AAAAAAAAB0w/-bAzpOYn0PM/s1600-h/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-6.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 286px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Sub-2aAgY0I/AAAAAAAAB0w/-bAzpOYn0PM/s400/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397281414097953602" border="0" /></a><br />Keeping a teaching or learning journal can be a really important part of this process of reflection and writing entries can help us to reformulate what we have read or analyse our experiences and draw conclusions from them which we can later return to, share and reflect on again.<br /><br />For me <a href="https://penzu.com/p" target="_blank">Penzu </a>is a really good tool which can help me and my students or trainee teachers to do this.<br /><h3>How to create your learning journal</h3><ul><li>Go to: <a href="https://penzu.com/p" target="_blank">https://penzu.com/</a> and click on ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">Sign up</span>’.</li></ul><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYD9PSyII/AAAAAAAABz4/lGV8fC8M70M/s1600-h/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-2-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYD9PSyII/AAAAAAAABz4/lGV8fC8M70M/s400/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-2-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397238765940033666" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li>You will need to create a password and enter a username, email address and agree to the terms of use. Then you just click on ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">Submit</span>’.</li></ul><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYTXGsXUI/AAAAAAAAB0A/xqlNQt0B47o/s1600-h/Penzu+%7C+Free+Sign-Up-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 365px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYTXGsXUI/AAAAAAAAB0A/xqlNQt0B47o/s400/Penzu+%7C+Free+Sign-Up-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397239030581321026" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li>You can then start creating your journal entries by adding a text and title. Each entry is dated automatically and you can move from one entry to another using the tabs on the right of the page.</li></ul><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYcvF4lEI/AAAAAAAAB0I/23LzecSWJOk/s1600-h/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-3-2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 236px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYcvF4lEI/AAAAAAAAB0I/23LzecSWJOk/s400/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-3-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397239191639200834" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li>To add pictures, you simply click on the ‘<span style="font-weight: bold;">Insert Photo</span>’ icon at the top of the page and locate an image on your computer and upload it.</li></ul><br /><ul><li><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYoD9--MI/AAAAAAAAB0Q/9gJHEtWW7yc/s1600-h/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-5-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 302px; height: 118px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYoD9--MI/AAAAAAAAB0Q/9gJHEtWW7yc/s400/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-5-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397239386221770946" border="0" /></a>Once you have uploaded your pictures you simply click to insert the ones you want to use.</li></ul><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYyUFph-I/AAAAAAAAB0Y/XO3xnlPFhdQ/s1600-h/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-8.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 199px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubYyUFph-I/AAAAAAAAB0Y/XO3xnlPFhdQ/s400/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397239562347579362" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li>The picture will appear in the margin and you can then drag it up or down to line it up with the text. Users click on the images to enlarge them.</li></ul><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubZAMDbSbI/AAAAAAAAB0g/7z7FN4XCPEg/s1600-h/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-10.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 302px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubZAMDbSbI/AAAAAAAAB0g/7z7FN4XCPEg/s400/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-10.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397239800708942258" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li>To share journal entries you click on the share icon and this enables you to email your entry to someone else. You can either include your name and email along with a message or this can be done anonymously.</li></ul><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubZMD_PU_I/AAAAAAAAB0o/6h7M-0xc2G0/s1600-h/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-12.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 176px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SubZMD_PU_I/AAAAAAAAB0o/6h7M-0xc2G0/s400/Penzu+%7C+Free+Online+Diary+and+Personal+Journal-12.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5397240004702327794" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How we can use Penzu as a journal tool.</span><br /><ul><li>We can write short summaries of articles we have read and make a note of what our personal main points of interest or learning were from the article.</li><li>We can keep a journal of our teaching or training work and reflect on how classes went, compare these to our expectations and make notes of things we would like to try differently next time.</li><li>We can use it as an action research journal recording what we do in each lesson and setting out our objectives for the action research project. We can also ask students to use it to keep a journal of their reflections on our teaching and we can ask them to send us entries anonymously so that we can get unbiased feedback from our students on our teaching.</li><li>We can include it as part of a peer to peer development program and partner up teachers to watch each others classes, reflect on what they saw and send each other entries.</li><li>We can use it as a simple record of what we did in the class and what we want to do to follow it up in the next class.<br /></li></ul><br />The vital thing with all of these activities is that we return to our entries and reflect on what we wrote some time later. Immediate responses to what happens in our classes can be very subjective and emotional. If we record those responses and then come back to them at a time when we can be more objective we are often able to gain much greater insights into what happened in the class. In this way the journal enables us to capture thoughts and feelings that would otherwise be lost.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I like about Penzu</span><br /><ul><li>It’s free and very simple to use.</li><li>The entries are private, but be can be shared</li><li>We can add images to make the entries more memorable</li><li>It can be accessed from anywhere</li><li>It’s quick and date stamps entries for us</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I’m not so sure about</span><br /><ul><li>It would be nice to be able to add a few hyperlinks (I think this is possible in the ‘Pro’ paid for edition.</li><li>It would be nice to have the option of having images in the text rather than just in the margin (again, probably available in the ‘Pro’ edition)</li></ul><br />Well that’s about all I have to say about Penzu for now. I’ve focused on its uses as a tool for teacher development here, but it is also a great tool to use with students too. For more information on using Penzu with students check out my teaching manual <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/19576895/Web-20-Tools-for-Teachers" target="_blank">Web 2.0 Tools for Teachers</a>, which you can read or download for free.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/05/complete-efl-teacher-training-course.html" target="_blank">A Complete EFL Teacher Training Course Online</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/05/using-wikis-for-teacher-development.html" target="_blank">Using wikis for teacher development</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html" target="_blank">Create your own social network 7 steps</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/03/3-views-on-future-of-english-language.html" target="_blank">Three Views of the Future of English Language Teaching</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/12/teachers-stories.html" target="_blank">Teachers' Stories</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/07/elt-classroom-videos.html" target="_blank">ELT classroom videos</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2008/08/social-networks-and-web-20-revolution.html" target="_blank">Social Networks and the Web 2.0 Revolution: Part 2</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/06/create-your-own-social-network-7-steps.html" target="_blank">Create your own social network 7 steps</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/06/creating-online-classroom.html" target="_blank">Creating an Online Classroom</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-are-you-wanted-for.html" target="_blank">What are you Wanted for?</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peracheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-89412467524341098372009-10-01T03:37:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:12.746-08:00Revising Short Texts and Syntax on IWB<a href="http://www.triptico.co.uk/flashFiles/wordMagnets/Word%20Magnets.swf" target="_blank">WordMagnets </a>is a really useful tool that students can either use alone on a computer, or that you can use in class with a projector or IWB.<br /><br />Here's a short video showing you how to use it.<br /><br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lvE7lOBG_jA&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lvE7lOBG_jA&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="300" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br />You can download a copy of the <a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/movies/word-magnets.mov" target="_blank">video here </a>and copy suitable for<a href="http://www.technogogy.org.uk/movies/word-magnets_iPod.m4v" target="_blank"> iPod here</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.triptico.co.uk/flashFiles/wordMagnets/Word%20Magnets.swf">WordMagnets</a> is a simple tool that allows you to paste text into a field and then click a couple of times to change the text into word tiles a little like fridge magnets that you can drag and rearrange. Here's a text that I quickly copied in from an article about J. K. Rowling.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SsR4xUe59uI/AAAAAAAABqI/X3Q9Tw0CnyQ/s1600-h/Word+Magnets.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 286px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SsR4xUe59uI/AAAAAAAABqI/X3Q9Tw0CnyQ/s400/Word+Magnets.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387563842949215970" border="0" /></a>I clicked on 'Next', then ignored the opportunity to change the background and clicked 'Next' again and I had these randomised word tiles that I could then drag to recreate the text.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SsR5TuJCGtI/AAAAAAAABqQ/bW7QjumZIU0/s1600-h/Word+Magnet.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 270px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SsR5TuJCGtI/AAAAAAAABqQ/bW7QjumZIU0/s400/Word+Magnet.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387564433952348882" border="0" /></a><br />This is a great tool that has some really useful features. You can type in and add words to the text, or you can delete word tiles from the text by clicking on remove then clicking the words you want to get rid of.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SsR7Y0s5KnI/AAAAAAAABqY/zff2PUa0NDo/s1600-h/Word+Magnets-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 174px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/SsR7Y0s5KnI/AAAAAAAABqY/zff2PUa0NDo/s400/Word+Magnets-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387566720635972210" border="0" /></a>You can also change the colour and size of the tiles, which could be useful if you really want them to stand out on a whiteboard or dataprojector.<br /><br /><h3>How can we use this with students?</h3><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Revising text</span> - You can get students to test themselves working alone or in pairs on a computer. They simply copy and paste short snippets of text into the text field and generate their won activities. Just two sentences at a time should be enough (Try it, it's harder than you think). Then they have to drag the words back into the correct order. They can check against the original source to se if they get it right. This is great to help them develop an awareness of syntax and collocation.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dialogue build</span> - You can type or copy some short dialogues either from your coursebook or by grabbing text from a movie script (Here's a site that has a huge collection of movie scripts that you can copy and paste from: <a href="http://www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml" target="_blank">Drew's Script-O-Rama</a>). First get the students to read or listen to the short dialogues then get them to work together to arrange the words into the correct order (This would be a great time to have the dialogue on an IWB and students could actually come up and drag the words into the correct order themselves).</li><li>Once you have the words in order you can get students to practice saying the dialogue. Once they have done it a few times, gradually start deleting words. Start with less important ones like articles and prepositions, so that the key 'sense' carrying words remain. See if your students can still say the dialogue. Then ask them to rebuild the text again adding the missing words. This is a great way to get students internalising dialogue.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Error noticing</span> - You could use the tool to revise a text with the whole class and actually add in some words that didn't appear in the text as distractors or delete some words and see if students can guess which ones are missing.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Extending sentences</span> - You could get the students to arrange a short sentence and then start adding new words to it to lengthen the sentence like the<a href="http://www.telescopictext.com/" target="_blank"> telescopic text</a> from this exercise: <a href="http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/2008/10/extending-sentence.html" target="_blank">Extending a Sentence</a>. You could suggest a word to add to the sentence and then students can decide how and where they make it fit and what other words they need to add with it.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Focus on form </span>- You could use it to focus on form by creating an exercise using examples of sentences with a specific structure that you want to revise. Get the students to arrange the words of the sentences then highlight similarities in structure.</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Parts of speech</span> - You can get students to colour code the parts of speech in the sentence of colour highlight collocations, etc.<br /></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I like about it</span><br /><ul><li>Word magnets is free, easy to use.<br /></li><li>You can use it to create materials and exercises almost instantly without any preparation.<br /></li><li>Once the Flash swf file is open it works quickly in your browser and so doesn't require a fast connection or any software downloads.</li><li> It can push students to really think about syntax and collocation without having to focus too much on applying sets of rules. </li><li>It makes text much easier to manipulate on an IWB (if you have ever tried to create an exercise like this on an IWB, you'll know that it takes a long time).</li><li>You can get students up to the board and moving the words around and changing the colours themselves.<br /></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I'm not so sure about</span><br /><ul><li>It's a shame you cant save activities, but at least this means that you aren't violating copyright by cutting and pasting text as all activities are transitory.</li><li>It would be useful to have a solution button that you could click and see the words in the right order. Again though this could also be a benefit because it encourages students to keep trying rather than give up and get the answer.</li></ul><a href="http://www.triptico.co.uk/flashFiles/wordMagnets/Word%20Magnets.swf" target="_blank">WordMagnets</a> is a really useful tool whether your students are working alone or whether you are working with them using a projector. I hope you find it useful.<br /><br />You can find more <a href="http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/search/label/text" target="_blank">text based activities for EFL and ESL</a> students here.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/10/translate-shakespeare-2-text-lingo-4.html" target="_blank">Translate Shakespeare 2 Text Lingo 4 Twitter??<br /></a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/05/goolge-maps-for-directions.html" target="_blank">Goolge Maps for Directions</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/02/prompting-reading-speeds.html" target="_blank">Prompting reading speeds</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/09/comparing-texts-to-aid-noticing.html">Comparing Texts to Aid Noticing</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/09/write-your-own-quick-biography.html" target="_blank">Write Your Own Quick Biography</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/10/animated-efl-esl-writing-prompts.html" target="_blank">Animated EFL ESL Writing Prompts</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/08/text-to-speech-for-efl-esl-materials.html" target="_blank">Text to Speech for EFL ESL Materials</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/04/creating-audio-visual-monologues.html" target="_blank">Creating audio-visual monologues</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/01/drama-project-tools.html" target="_blank">Drama project tools</a></li></ul>Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-597546940534164297.post-12737733048154783502009-07-22T04:27:00.000-07:002013-02-15T02:51:12.828-08:00Using Wise Quotes with EFL ESL StudentsI've always found wise (and sometimes not so wise) quotes really useful, both within the classroom with students and as a way of introducing a topic when writing materials. I've used lots of different websites to find quotes over the years, but <a href="http://www.iwise.com/index.php" target="_blank">iWise</a> is certainly about to become my new favourite as it seems to have taken wise quotes to a new level.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Smb4jnNai9I/AAAAAAAABbI/Cq0NXEW_Utk/s1600-h/iWise-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 287px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Smb4jnNai9I/AAAAAAAABbI/Cq0NXEW_Utk/s400/iWise-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361245697135512530" border="0" /></a>You can search for quotes by keyword, look at quotes of the day, browse quotes by topic or just click for a random quote.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Smb4vq29ThI/AAAAAAAABbQ/86HM6lx-IYU/s1600-h/technology+quotes-+iWise+search-1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 167px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Smb4vq29ThI/AAAAAAAABbQ/86HM6lx-IYU/s400/technology+quotes-+iWise+search-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361245904273493522" border="0" /></a><br /><br />That isn't all, <a href="http://www.iwise.com/index.php" target="_blank">iWise</a> is compatible with Twitter and allows you to re-tweet quotes or subscribe to and follow tweet feeds from your favourite sources of wisdom.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Smb4OAtcxeI/AAAAAAAABbA/GJbkRZhV7HQ/s1600-h/iWise.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 395px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Smb4OAtcxeI/AAAAAAAABbA/GJbkRZhV7HQ/s400/iWise.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361245326023640546" border="0" /></a><br />If you decide to search by topic etc, it even pulls in tweets from Twitter too.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Smb5BHkogmI/AAAAAAAABbg/jkHvwYPZ_Og/s1600-h/technology+quotes-+iWise+search.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 231px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5CtPWvrLnT4/Smb5BHkogmI/AAAAAAAABbg/jkHvwYPZ_Og/s400/technology+quotes-+iWise+search.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361246204039037538" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">So how about some quote activities with our EFL ESL students?</span><br /><br />Here are some suggestions:<br /><ul><li>Get students to find a random quote and translate it into their own language or find a parallel quote in their own L1.</li><li>Collect 8 - 10 quotes on a similar topic and get students to discus them and see which ones they prefer / most agree with.</li><li>Get 8 - 10 quotes and cut them in half to create a matching activity. Get your students to match the two halves of each quote.</li><li>Get you students to match the quotes to the writer of the quote.</li><li>Give your students a list of 6 - 8 topics and ask them to find their favourite quote on each topic, then compare them in class and discus / have a class vote on which is the best (students should try to convince others in the class that theirs is the best quote)</li><li>Get two+ quotes on the same topic. Print them up and put them around the class get the students to stand by the one they most like / agree with and discus why.</li><li>Choose 2 -3 people and get your students to find their best quotes, then compare that quotes and try to decide which of the people is the wisest.</li><li>Give the first part of some quotes to your students and see if your students can write an ending to it.</li><li>Find some quotes about someone and see if the students can guess who they are about.</li><li>Use a single quote at the start of each lesson to lead in to the theme of the lesson.</li><li>Use a single quote at the start of each lesson as a warmer and ask students if they agree / disagree with the quote. They could give it marks out of ten too. Keep a league of favourite quotes.<br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Why do I like it?</span><br /><ul><li>It's free and really simple (but also quite complex)</li><li>Some amazing features that really take advantage some Web 2.0 technology</li><li>Lots of fast and varied ways to access the quotes</li><li>There are loads of quotes from a real range of sources</li><li>There is an iPhone ap which can enable you to get all this information via your iPhone or iPod Touch so great for mobile learners</li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">What I'm not so sure about</span><br /><ul><li>The site is so dynamic that you can see then loose quotes pretty quickly if you are just browsing.</li><li>Some quotes can be a little abstract!<br /></li><li>The site is free, but the ap isn't, but it is very cheap (59p in UK). Here's a video showing how you can use it.</li></ul><br /><object height="300" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8ojDLOEwYVY&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8ojDLOEwYVY&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="300" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br />NB: I have bought the ap, but haven't tried it yet so this is NOT and endorsement of the ap.<br /><br />I hope you enjoy <a href="http://www.iwise.com/index.php" target="_blank">iWise</a> and the ideas here. Please leave a comment if you have any other favourite quote sites or suggestions for how you have used quotes with students.<br /><br />Here you can find more <a href="http://daily-english-activities.blogspot.com/search/label/reading">online reading activities for EFL ESL students</a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Related links:</span><br /><ul><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/07/get-news-through-images.html" target="_blank">Get the News Through Images</a><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/07/get-news-through-images.html" target="_blank"><br /></a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/09/adventure-narratives-for-efl-esl.html" target="_blank">Adventure Narratives for EFL ESL Students</a><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/09/adventure-narratives-for-efl-esl.html"><br /></a><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/02/prompting-reading-speeds.html" target="_blank"> </a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/11/exploiting-two-computer-based-rpgs_09.html" target="_blank">Exploiting two computer-based RPGs</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/03/exploiting-travel-images.html" target="_blank">Exploiting Travel Images</a></li><li><a href="http://quickshout.blogspot.com/2009/03/art-photography-as-basis-for-language.html" target="_blank">Art Photography as a Basis for Language Activities</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/11/create-image-books.html" target="_blank">Create Image Books</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/01/pictures-worth.html" target="_blank">A Picture's worth</a></li><li><a href="http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/02/picture-phrases.html" target="_blank">Picture phrases</a></li></ul><br />Best<br /><br />Nik Peacheysokecx28http://www.blogger.com/profile/18426682734494884685noreply@blogger.com0